


Startide

by Regiss



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Post-Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2019-11-08 18:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 99,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17986439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regiss/pseuds/Regiss
Summary: Though darkness no longer plagues the worlds, the full ramifications of the conflict at Scala ad Caelum have yet to be seen. A tide of starlight, a danger that only those whose existences straddle the line between light and dark can face. To save the worlds from slumber, Roxas and Xion are on their own.





	1. The Weeks Since

Rain fell on an empty world.

Water ran off black streets, pooling at curbs and falling into storm drains. Neon signs flickered behind the curtains of rain, putting on a facade of life amongst the dark buildings. But it was only a facade, with nobody around to witness it. No people scrambled for shelter from the weather, and no animals scavenged for food in the alleys. Though lights were on in the windows of the many black skyscrapers, no one could be seen inside. This world was abandoned. It had been abandoned for some time now, but even before then it had always been empty. That was why it was called the World That Never Was.

But abandoned though it was, there was one soul who made his way through the dark city. Near the center of the world, a figure navigated the maze of alleys and streets until he emerged in the square near Memory’s Skyscraper. With his hood up, his heavy black coat kept the rain off of him entirely. Even though he had not been here in quite some time, he still knew the twists and turns by heart. He had no fond memories of Never Was, but it was necessary to return here now. This half-formed world would be his ark.

The figure spared a glance up at the flickering images on the landmark’s screens - images of a girl, distorted by static - and then continued his way through the city. Through the ruins.

What had once been a metropolis as spotless as it was lifeless was now devastated; at least, the interior regions were. Following a final showdown between the forces of light and the forces of nothingness, the white castle that had previously hung in the black sky over the city had toppled. Entire skyscrapers had been uprooted from their foundation and come crashing down again. Concrete rubble was strewn across the streets, varying in size from as small as a pebble to as large as a building. The closer you got to the center of the world, to the vast pit above which the castle had once floated, the worse the devastation became.

The hooded figure stopped at ground zero, the Brink of Despair. The Castle That Never Was sat lopsided in the center of the pit. Or at least its lower half did. Its upper half, having been cut clean off near the climax of that encounter, had come crashing down onto part of the city and now rested across the pit, on the far cliff face from where the figure stood, the buildings around it having been toppled or flattened by the crash.

The constant sound of rain pelting the streets, and his shoulders and head, had begun to slow down. As he overlooked the ruins of the castle, the man in the black coat held out a hand palm-up and caught some of the raindrops on his leather glove. When the last drop had fallen, the man raised both hands up and lowered his hood. Would he have liked to shed himself of the black coat completely? Yes. But there was a hole in his heart, something missing, and the protection the coat offered was needed until that hole was filled.

Turning his gaze from the castle to the night sky, the man watched as the last of the rain clouds disappeared. There was no heart-shaped moon to greet him, but he had neither expected that nor wished to see it. Even despite the light pollution from the buildings surrounding him, he had a perfect view of the thousands of lights twinkling high up above. The stars were exceptionally beautiful tonight.

The man placed a hand over his aching chest and clutched tight at his coat. He spoke in a steady voice with his gaze locked on the heavens above.

“May my heart be my guiding key.”

** Startide **

** Chapter 1: The Weeks Since **

In another world, one not far from the World That Never Was, night had not quite fallen just yet. Out here, it was like the sky was on fire. Shades of orange and yellow coated the sky and clouds, mixing with a faint purplish hue on the horizon. A girl took in a deep breath, her black hair blowing in the wind. No matter how many times she saw this sight, no matter where she saw it, Xion never grew tired of watching the sunset.

A voice beside her spoke up. “Don’t lose your grip, Xion.”

Xion snickered and turned to the boy beside her, his face silhouetted against the sun. Her best friend for as long as she could remember. “You either. This is a little more important than holding onto an ice cream stick, Roxas.”

“I haven’t dropped an ice cream in ages!”

Amidst laughter, the two who had only recently been restored from a state of nonexistence held tightly onto their lifelines while watching the sun vanish beneath the horizon. With one last flash of light, the warm hues in the sky were replaced with a deep, dark blue as the stars came out to greet them. It was different, but it was no less beautiful in its own way. Staring up at the stars, seeing the many worlds that she and Roxas had been to, and that all their friends old and new had been to? It was something Xion had never just slowed down to look at before… And it was almost enough to make her forget the anxiousness that came with sundown, the growing pit in her gut. The night sky was beautiful, but with night also came-

“It’s getting kind of chilly,” Roxas said beside her. Thankful for the distraction, Xion shook her head and pushed that anxiety aside for now. “You ready to head on down?”

Xion rubbed her bare arm for a moment and then gripped the handlebars tightly. “Yeah. Come on, everyone else is waiting.”

With a nod, Roxas and Xion turned around and started heading back the way they had come. It felt strange and more than a little scary to soar through the air with only some metal beneath their bodies keeping them from falling out of the sky, but according to their teacher it was more than safe as long as they held on tight. The Keyblade Glider, Master Aqua called it.

Xion had not known until very recently just how much Keyblades, those magical weapons of the heart that had defined her short life, could really do. She leaned forward on her transformed blade and accelerated as she and Roxas returned to the mountaintop garden where they had spent the last several weeks practicing under three wielders of the Keyblade far more skilled than she could have imagined: the Land of Departure. As they curved around the white and gold castle, Xion watched with wariness and curiosity. She still could hardly believe that it had once been Castle Oblivion, the world that had once haunted her nightmares for the better part of a year. Some day she would have to ask about the full story behind that.

“Xion! Roxas!”

The voice of one of their three teachers called up to them. Master Aqua was waving at them from the cliff, as behind her the others were already gathered. Wait, hold on. Xion squinted as she examined everyone down in the gardens. Not everyone was there yet-

A little cat creature that had been watching the sky sighed and shook its head. “Oh boy.”

An instant later, Master Aqua’s voice rose up again. “Lea, look out!”

A blur of red shot between Xion and Roxas, sending both of them hurtling through the sky and nearly tossing them off of their Gliders. As Xion struggled to regain her composure she heard Roxas call out in confusion a few yards away, “Axel?!”

The newest Keyblade wielder of them all came rushing out of the night sky like a meteor, his shouts of terror echoing over the Land of Departure. He jumped off of his Keyblade Glider at the last second, and as it crashed into the side of the mountain Lea’s body was sent flying until he crashed and tumbled on the soft earth, then came to a stop at the base of a man dressed in black.

“Having trouble again?” Isa asked with an entertained smirk decorating his face.

Lea spit out grass and grinned up at his friend. “You’re just jealous you can’t join us up there.”

“Yes, absolutely. I’m jealous that I’m not risking my neck while failing to fly.” Isa helped Lea up to his feet just in time for Roxas and Xion to leap off their Gliders and hurry over to the redhead. The vehicles vanished in flashes of light as soon as their owners left them behind.

“Are you alright, Axel?!” Xion asked, grabbing Lea’s wrist and examining his arm with concern. He could have broken a bone doing that!

“Easy, Xion. I’m fine. I’ve dealt with a lot worse, you know that.” He flexed one arm and grabbed his bicep. “I’ll get the hang of this thing no problem! It’s just, you know, gonna take some time. A little pain never hurt anyone right?” Though as he said this, he lowered his arms and pressed his hands into his back with a grimace.

“It’s just because you’re still new to the Keyblade is all, Lea.” Though that was Roxas’s voice, he wasn’t the one who had said it. Ventus walked up to the group with a disarming smile, but the cat in his arms shook its head.

“I’m not so sure that’s the reason,” Chirithy said with a gesture upwards. In the sky, two more Keyblade Gliders skillfully moved back and forth, up and down. Riku and Kairi. Xion felt a pang tug at her heart at the sight; not for the sight of those two in and of itself, but for what it stood as a reminder of.

The two of them had stuck together like glue these last few weeks, ever since…well, everyone had taken to just calling it ‘ _back then_.’ After Xehanort’s defeat, Sora had gone off to save Kairi with the power of waking despite the King’s protests and Xehanort’s younger self’s warnings. He had come back with her seemingly safe and sound, and with Kairi back they had also been able to recomplete Naminé. But soon after, and right in front of everyone, Sora had…

Since _back then_ , Riku and Kairi had been inseparable. During this period of training in the Land of Departure, they had fought together, ate together, everything. There was absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that the second things were finished here those two would go off and find Sora. Some of the others expected Donald and Goofy to join in, too. Whatever the makeup of their party, Xion wished them the best.

“Those two probably do have the best hang of it out of all of you.” Another voice spoke up as they watched Riku and Kairi start to descend. His voice not only snapped Xion back to reality, it also made her stiffen up. While the warm and comforting tone was a sharp contrast, the voice itself brought back memories of darker times. Terra walked up to her and Roxas and smiled. “But they’re not the only ones doing well. Roxas, I think your control is really impressive in particular.”

Roxas practically jumped out of his skin at the praise. He stood up straight and bowed his head while fumbling over his own words. “Uh, t-thank you, Supe- sir!”

Roxas had stopped himself, but Terra had caught that slip nonetheless. He hesitated, then rubbed his neck awkwardly. “Uh, yeah, I… No problem, Roxas. Then I guess I’ll, um, go speak to Riku.” With that obvious change of the subject, he hastily turned and went to greet Riku and Kairi as they landed.

Once Terra had turned around Roxas visibly relaxed. His shoulders drooped and he let out a breath. Xion grabbed his hand, entangling his fingers with hers to bring him out of his memories. They didn’t need to share words, they’d spoken about this before. Working with Terra was…hard.

“The situation is clearly as difficult for him as it is us,” Isa commented dryly.

Despite his stupor, Roxas nodded. “I can’t really blame him. I don’t know what I’d do if I were in his shoes.”

Like the story behind Castle Oblivion, or why it was that Ven and Roxas looked alike, Terra’s story was something Xion didn’t have the full picture of. But she knew enough, both from Lea’s summaries and from the way others had spoken, to piece together his connection to Xemnas. She could see it in his face, even if his expression was different; hear it in his voice, even if his tone was different.

From the sound of things Terra had memories of his time under Xehanort’s control, too. They were about as hazy and distant as Xion’s own memories of Sora’s life, but they were still there. And there was probably more than his fair share of regret for everything that Xehanort had done with his body weighing him down, too. To say that things were awkward between Terra and the former members of Organization XIII was an understatement.

“Lea! Xion, Roxas!” Ven called over to the three of them, standing with Terra, Riku, Kairi, and Master Aqua. “Come on! We have one more thing we’re gonna test you guys at before we’re done tonight.”

Roxas looked to Xion beside him, then over his shoulder to Lea. He grinned. “A test? And here I thought we were just playing around on the Gliders all evening.”

Lea chuckled. “Well if they were testing us on that, I’d say I failed with flying colors. Alright Ven, we’re coming!”

Master Aqua spoke up as the Keyblade wielders all gathered around. “You’ve made great progress these last few weeks with the Keyblade Gliders, but their true strength comes partnered with something else. Flying around in one world’s sky isn’t all they’re used for.”

“Is this about those gates, Master Aqua?” Kairi asked.

Aqua let out a soft breath and smiled. “Kairi, please, like I keep saying you can all just call me Aqua.” Kairi’s face flushed red for a moment and she twirled some hair between her fingers before Aqua continued. “But you’re right. They’re called the Lanes Between: special passageways that Keyblade wielders have long used to travel between worlds.”

“Don’t they have the Gummi Ship for that?” Isa asked. He stood behind the assembled Keyblade wielders, but was still keeping up with the conversation.

Chirithy, still held tightly by Ven, spoke up in Aqua’s place. “Both have their upsides. The Gummi Ship allows for a lot of people to travel together, and for non-wielders to travel between worlds too. But you have to find a place to dock it, and have to return to it to leave the world. With the Lanes Between you can leave whenever and wherever, and all you need is your Keyblade.”

“So what’s the catch?” Riku asked. “These Lanes sound pretty handy to me, but I’ve never seen Mickey use them before and I can’t imagine he didn’t know about them.”

Chirithy continued. “If anything, the Lanes Between are closer to the corridors of darkness. Darkness plagues the world between worlds, and if you don’t have a way to hold it off then it will worm its way inside your heart. That’s what the Keyblade Armor is for.”

“Or the black coats,” Xion mused. Questioning glances came her way from Terra, Aqua, and Ven, so she continued. “Besides just being the Organization’s uniform, it also kept the darkness of the corridors away from us while we wore it.”

Ven smiled. “And here I thought it was just a fashion statement.”

Beside Xion, Roxas shook his head. “I’ve had enough of that sort of fashion for a lifetime. I don’t think I’m going to put that coat on any time soon.”

Aqua brought her hand up to her chin in thought. “Well unless you have some other alternative you may have to if you plan to ever use the Lanes Between. Master Eraqus was the one who made armor for Terra, Ven, and I, and we don’t know how to do it ourselves.”

“Don't worry about that.” Riku tugged on his jacket. “The clothes Kairi, Mickey, and I got from the fairies from Enchanted Dominion protect us from the darkness like black coats. Oh, Lea’s too. Roxas, Xion, I’m sure you guys could as Master Yen Sid for some like them.”

The good fairies, huh? Yet another story Xion had heard fragments of but didn’t know the details to. Quite a lot had happened in the short time she was, well, away. Xion smiled and put her hands behind her back. “We’ll have to stop by. Thanks for the suggestion, Riku!” Though as soon as she said those last words, she knew they were a mistake.

Without needing to look at him Xion quickly grabbed Roxas’s hand, trying once again to get him to calm down. She felt him lessen up somewhat, but from Riku’s own shift in expression she could guess what look Roxas was giving him. Unlike so many other things, the story between Riku and Roxas was one Xion _did_ know. She’d been filled in on everything that had happened involving those two after she and Roxas fought in Twilight Town, from their first encounter in Never Was up to their last one in Ansem’s datascape.

Things had been… _rocky_ between Riku and Roxas since they had all arrived in the Land of Departure, and Xion and Kairi had done their best to keep them away from each other’s throats; metaphorically, of course. It had never come to actual blows. Roxas was the antagonizer ninety nine percent of the time, even though he knew – and Xion _knew_ that he knew, because they had spoken about it in private before – that everything Riku had done had been to save Sora. His own best friend.

 _“I know that, but still,”_ Roxas had said during one of those conversations. _“I know he wanted to save Sora, just like I had wanted to save you. But still, he helped to take away everything important to me. And I don’t want to lose anything or anyone ever again.”_

Xion could also tell that Roxas was especially concerned about her interacting with Riku. She wasn’t happy about that; on the one hand his care for her was appreciated, but seriously, Xion could take care of herself and Riku wasn’t someone he needed to be concerned about in the first place. Still – she spared a glance over her shoulder at Isa – the past was something Xion knew full well was hard to get over emotionally, no matter what you logically knew to be true in your mind.

“Roxas, come on.” Xion tugged on his hand, and he finally relented.

“Hey, Riku.” Or had he? Xion’s heart fell. Had he just lied to her–? “You know you still owe me that 5000 munny from last summer.” Roxas crossed his arms and grinned a toothy grin.

Riku snorted a laugh. “Right, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back.”

“If you don’t, then I guess I can just break your other wrist as payment.”

Riku’s eyes briefly widened in worry as he mentally relived the first time that happened, and then the awkward laughter that comes after a stressful moment began rise up from the group and fill the night air around the Land of Departure. Well, not everyone’s laughter was that awkward. A genuine giggle came up away from the group, and heads turned to the bench where Naminé sat with her sketchbook on her lap and a pencil in her hand.

“Naminé, come on. Laughing at me?” Riku feigned hurt.

“Sorry! It’s just…” Naminé smiled and turned her sketchbook over, showing everyone a perfect rendition of Riku’s shocked expression forever immortalized on paper.

“Naminé?!” Riku gasped out, and this time everyone started to laugh for real. Him included.

Once the laughter slowly died down, Lea cleared his throat. After nobody paid him any mind he did it again, louder and more forcefully. Finally heads turned his way and he placed his hands on his hips. “This warning is all well and good, but we already went over it when we came here. So what’s this test, you guys?”

“Oh, right.” Terra cleared his throat then stood up straight. The teacher look didn’t really suit him, though. “One last thing before you all graduate from the Land of Departure. We’ve spoken about the Lanes Between, but now it’s time to try it out. You all ready?”

Xion looked to Roxas beside her, then Lea behind her. The trio nodded and summoned their Keyblades. Riku and Kairi did the same, then Ven set Chirithy down and he, Terra, and Aqua lastly all called on theirs. Ven jumped up onto a rock and pointed his Keyblade forward. “Look deep inside your heart. Let it guide your way forward. And then, like this!”

A beam of light shot forth from Wayward Wind, and at the point on the ground where it hit an oval-shaped gate emerged. It was reminiscent of the dark corridors that Xion and her friends were used to, but composed of lighter colors as opposed to the black and purple of darkness.

Two more beams shot out of Ends of the Earth and Stormfall as Terra and Aqua opened entrances into the Lanes alongside Ven’s. Aqua turned to the others. “Once all of you try it out, we can spend one more night in the castle before you all head home.”

And with those words and no further distractions, the anxiety about tonight that had been gnawing at Xion earlier returned all at once, hitting her like a freight train.

‘Rest’… Right.

* * *

_I've never used AO3 before, and I wonder if that shows._

_Hello, and thank you for checking out Startide! This is a fic that I’ve been brainstorming since finishing KH3, and I’m excited to finally get started on it._

_If you’re familiar with my previous fics that were posted on FFN—Remember the Tides, The Tides Go Out, and On the Way to a Smile—let me say plainly that Startide has nothing to do with them. There may be some familiar concepts reused here and there (which you might be able to tell just from the title!), but the stories are completely separate. Think of this as a spiritual successor to the Tides series, not a sequel. But I hope you’ll enjoy reading it just the same!_


	2. Traumas

She had nothing. No memories, no heart, no name. Just a number: thirteen.

The thirteenth dark vessel.

The sun beat down overhead, making her uncomfortably hot in her heavy black coat. There was a breeze but it offered no solace from the heat; it was dry and warm, carrying nothing but dust and sand with it. In fact it was nothing but dust and sand for miles around. Beneath her hood she carefully glanced left and right, but could see nothing except for the badlands that stretched on and on into the horizon. Behind the dust blowing in the wind, the air above the wastes seemed to ripple from the heat. This world was dead. It made her feel like she was the only person in all of existence.

She stood there, unmoving, in the middle of the badlands for so long that she lost track of time. But this didn’t bother her, for she had no heart to be bothered with. Only an empty puppet, created to serve as the final piece of a puzzle that would fall into place and fulfill a plan decades in the making. But as she stood there, as the sun began to fall and the sky shifted from blue to orange, something shifted inside of her. Recognition. Standing here, in the center of thirteen stone pillars, caused a sense of familiarity. But it was stomped out by the nothingness within her, gone from her thoughts as suddenly as it had come.

“Today is a momentous day.”

A voice rang out over the emptiness, the first sound besides the blowing wind that she had heard in what felt like years. It was an old voice, heavy from the weight of a long life and many experiences, but still only a candle to the bonfire that was the badlands’ age. She glanced up in the direction of the speaker, and suddenly found herself surrounded. Figures in black stood atop twelve of the thirteen pillars, having made no sound to announce their arrival. Rather, it was as though they had always been there even though she knew that not to be the case.

The one who had spoken stood on the tallest pillar, directly in front of her. The only one without the black coat. She craned her neck to make eye contact with him. With his hands resting behind his back, he looked down at her with a smile and one raised eyebrow. She had never laid eyes on this man before, but she knew who and what he was. This wicked man’s heart beat steadily inside her hollow chest.

“Let us all welcome one of the Keyblade’s chosen.”

Some welcome. There was no applause, not even words from the others. But she hadn’t expected any. She didn’t deserve any. Slowly she turned in a circle, looking up at the cold gazes of the twelve. The man with the long blond hair, the only one among them whom she had seen before this moment, had a grin on his face that somehow exceeded the old man’s, but like the rest he said nothing. Her gaze lingered on a man with blue hair whose expression was the most unreadable of all. Once more she thought she sensed something familiar, and once more it was quickly stomped out.

That was where her existence in that empty world truly began. The others were not always as quiet as that first meeting, but she always was. The others had memories, they had hearts. Things she lacked. But she was not supposed to have them in the first place. She was the thirteenth vessel and nothing more, created specifically for the quickly approaching promised day. When the man with pink hair and woman with blonde hair laughed as they made her run errands, she felt nothing. When the blue-haired man or the man with one eye watched her with unreadable expressions, she felt nothing. When the gambler and the musician invited her to play a game of cards with them, she felt nothing.

She had nothing to feel with in the first place, after all.

Sometimes the others would disappear for days at a time, assigned to one world or another for the old man’s schemes. But for her, the earliest she could remember leaving the wastes was different. The old man’s right hand, an imposing figure with an even more imposing voice, had taken her through the darkness to a forest with a spring of crystal clear water. She stood still and silent, staring at the surface, until the man – in a completely emotionless tone – ordered her to bathe and wash her clothing. She glanced down at her black coat, stained brown by dirt and dust, and complied. In the water she saw her reflection for the first time. Short silver hair and empty golden eyes stared back at her as she robotically went through the motions.

But empty though she was, her body needed rest. And when she slept on the hard earth of the badlands, she would have dreams. Dreams of a blond boy.

In the badlands, somewhere amongst the rugged mountains, the two of them stood across from each other. He stumbled, his weapon disappearing in a flash of light. Hers soon did the same. He leaned forward with one hand on his knee, the other holding his face. Between his fingers eyes as clear and blue as the water of that spring stared back at her.

Something inside her stirred. A duty compelled her forward.

She approached the boy slowly. “I’m so glad you finally remembered.” Her voice didn’t match the words; she spoke as stoically as the man who had brought her to that other world.

She gently reached up and removed the boy’s hand from his face, cradling it in her own, their fingers intertwining. Her other hand brushed against his cheek. Her thumb wiped away dirt that had found its way there during their battle. Had they had a battle?

“I…”

The boy’s voice trailed off as she moved closer to him, pressed her body against his. The compulsion inside her grew stronger as she met his gaze, her golden eyes locking with his deep blue ones. She saw her reflection in the waters once again. The boy stuttered, but made no other action. He was frozen in place, exactly as she wanted.

Exactly as the darkness commanding her very being wanted.

She brushed his cheek again, stood up on the tips of her toes…and pressed her lips against his. The boy gasped and tried to pull back, but a squeeze of his hand stopped him. He pushed against him further and smiled as his eyes – once as wide as saucers – now became distant as his eyelids drooped. She slowly guided his hand to her chest, then his other to her back. Only then did she break the kiss. Still pressed up against him, she gently moved her other hand off his face and brushed her fingers against his shoulders before pulling back to help him with the zipper of her coat.

“We’ll have to make sure that you don’t forget me ever again.”

The black coat fell to the bleak earth. His arms wrapped around her, pulled her closer, and she pressed her lips against his once again. The darkness within her compelled her further, and she grinned as the boy’s half-open eyes began to change hue.

**x-x-x**

Xion eyes snapped open in a cold sweat. Where was she? Darkness was all around her, closing in– She stopped. Breathed. Her bedroom, Twilight Town. The lights were just off, that was all. Xion slowly pushed herself up. The sheets fell to the side, and she reached for the lamp on her bedside dresser. When the soft glow lit up this little corner of the room, she picked up a small mirror and nervously peered inside it. A sigh of relief followed soon after; blue, not gold. Xion fell back onto her pillow with the mirror clutched against her chest.

 _Those dreams again_.

Nightmares of her time in the second Organization XIII, of her time as nothing but a puppet for Xehanort’s machinations, had been plaguing Xion ever since she had been recompleted. She’d lost track of how many times she had woken up in the middle of the night like this. What’s worse, that… _interaction_ …with Roxas hadn’t been something spurred on by her subconscious. Of course not, why couldn’t it be something as simple as normal teenager problems? Not that she even liked Roxas that way. But no – that scenario, and others like it, were recurring dreams she had had while under Xehanort’s control. Clearly he had been trying to convince her to drag her friends down into darkness as well.

A knock on her bedroom door. Xion jumped, and the mirror clattered to the floor. The door creaked open a crack. “Xion? I heard you crying out in your sleep, is everything okay?”

Xion breathed out. It was just Roxas. It was a wonder this was only the first time he’d heard her, considering how she had these nightmares so often. She must have been crying especially loudly this time. Xion forced the memory of that last dream into the back of her mind and spoke up. “I am, yeah. Just a nightmare.”

Despite her assurance, Roxas didn’t leave; if anything, he looked more concerned now than before. He stepped inside her room and closed the door behind him. “If it was just a nightmare I don’t think you’d look so stressed out. Do you want to talk?”

Xion couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t get anything past him, could she? Roxas had definitely become more aware since they were recompleted. Xion brushed some hair out of her eyes. “…Sure. It might do some good to get things off my chest for once, actually.”

Roxas snickered, which Xion returned awkwardly as she once again pushed herself up into a sitting position. Oh, the mirror. She picked it up off the floor and set it back down on the bedside table, then turned to Roxas who had sat down at the foot of her bed. “So what are these nightmares about?”

Xion pulled her legs up to her chest. “The Keyblade Graveyard,” she admitted softly.

Roxas’s face fell. He recovered quickly, but Xion definitely noticed that brief shift in expression. The entire incident that they, that no one really, had spoken of much in the weeks since it happened. She had no doubt it was on everyone else’s mind as much as hers, though. “In what way?”

Xion took a deep breath. “Of the days before the final battle. When I was…” she reached for a word to use. “…Norted.” It was a term Demyx had come up with, the last time she saw him in Radiant Garden.

“Xion…” Roxas reached forward and placed his hand over hers. “I know those were dark times, but they’re over now.”

“I know. But it’s really hard to– Roxas, listen. I know we have a lot in common, but that’s something you never experienced before. Being a puppet, I mean.”

“I haven’t, no. But if you want to tell me, maybe I can try to understand.”

Xion took in a deep breath. For all that these thoughts had been bothering her since she was recompleted, talking about it wasn’t something she had done yet. She had learned in her first life that keeping her problems bottled up inside was absolutely not something to do, though. She spoke at the same time as her exhale. “Okay.”

Vexen had used the Replica Program to create vessels for the members of the second Organization XIII whose hearts had time traveled from the past. Xemnas, Ansem, Xehanort’s younger self they were all time-displaced hearts in replica bodies. Roxas knew this just as well as Xion did. Roxas himself was inhabiting a replica vessel too, put together with the help of Ienzo and Ansem the Wise.

“But for me it was different,” Xion said softly. “Because my heart was inside Sora. When Vexen made a new body for me based off his old research, he didn’t have my heart to put inside it. I wasn’t like the dark Riku replica; I wasn’t even like the way I used to be in the old Organization. I was just _empty_ ; no memories, no name. The only thing inside me was a fragment of Xehanort’s heart.”

“So like how Terra was?” Roxas asked.

“No... Closer to the way I was when you and I first met. I didn’t have a sense of self. I just did what I was told to do, moving like a machine.” Xion hugged her knees tighter. “And that’s what the nightmares are about. Every night I dream that I’m not in control of my body. I can feel Xehanort’s darkness running through my veins. When I wake up, sometimes my limbs are numb and I’m scared that they won’t move again. Other times I have to run into the bathroom to throw up.” By now she had buried her face in her crossed arms and was choking on her words. “I just… I– I–”

Something warm embraced her suddenly. Xion’s tear-stained face shot up to find Roxas hugging her. “Xion, it’s okay.” He pulled her tighter. “They’re just dreams, Xion. They can’t hurt you. You’re here, you’re safe with me. And Axel, and Isa too.”

“Roxas…” Xion sobbed and returned the hug even tighter, her hands grabbing at his shirt. “Thank you. Yes, you _are_ here. It was you who called me back.” She pulled away and smiled. Though tears still moved down her cheeks, it wasn’t because of fear. “In the Keyblade Graveyard, when I saw Axel – that was when I felt something. Something real, for the first time.” She hadn’t know who he was, what it was she was feeling, or why she had felt it. But she _had_ felt it. She had felt it the entire time they fought. It ate away at her as Lea had knelt in the dirt with her Keyblade pointed at him. She hadn’t been able to hold her weapon steady as her body fought the compulsion within her.

The first time her body had ever moved of her own free will was when she had grabbed at Xemnas’s weapons. It had hurt; it had hurt so much, burned so much. As she sniffled, Xion looked down at her palms and slowly furled and unfurled her fingers. But the pain had been worth it. Even if she hadn’t know why at the time, the pain had been worth it to protect him.

“And when I heard your voice call my name. When I was recognized… _remembered_. That’s when I wasn’t empty anymore.” Her gaze locked with Roxas’s, and she looked at her black hair reflected in his deep blue eyes. She remembered, too, when her hair and eyes had returned to normal; when Xehanort had been expelled from her. Xemnas knocking her aside, colliding her with Sora, had been the final catalyst needed for her heart to return to her. That physical contact combined with her reclaimed memories had caused a warmth to enter her, to bring her back to who she used to be.

“Roxas, you say Axel and I guided you back to us. You did the same to me. So thank you.” Now she initiated the hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and held him so tight, never wanting to let go. “Thank you for always keeping me safe, Roxas.”

“You're welcome, Xion. And thank you for bringing me home, too.” He leaned his head against hers. “I never want to lose anybody ever again. I promise, I’ll make sure all of us are never torn apart from each other. Not even for a minute.”

They sat there together in the dimly-lit room for a good while longer. Neither noticed the smiling redhead peeking through the cracked door before silently shutting it to leave them be.

**x-x-x**

When Roxas had returned to Twilight Town some time ago, the last thing he had ever expected to see was a new restaurant in the Tram Common. He had been even more surprised to find out that Donald’s uncle was the owner. Unfortunately despite Lea’s best efforts to convince Mister McDuck otherwise, there was no friends and family discount, though. Still, Le Grand Bistrot had quickly become one of Roxas’s favorite hangouts. The usual spot didn’t really have room for everyone now that his group of friends had grown so much.

Hayner slammed his phone down on the table and groaned loudly while Pence and Olette laughed at him. The game over screen of a Classic Kingdom game blinked back at them. Amidst their good-natured jeering Hayner grabbed his phone and pressed at the screen as he booted the game up a second time – only to lose all his lives again in almost as quickly as the last time.

“Nice going, Hayner!” Pence cackled with his hand on his belly.

Olette put her hand on Hayner’s shoulder but was having trouble hiding her giggles behind her other hand. “Third time’s the charm?”

“Yeah right, the game’s busted.” In a huff, Hayner all but tossed his phone over his shoulder. He stewed in his own anger for a moment before glancing over to Roxas. “What are you looking at?”

Roxas leaned back in his seat with his arms crossed and a smile on his face. “A sore loser.”

“Oh really?” Hayner put a hand on the table and leaned forward. “I didn’t know my face was a mirror.”

More laughter between the four friends. Roxas found himself remember sunny days and lazy afternoons in another life. Here and now, back together with Hayner, Pence, and Olette after everything that had happened, it was like he had never left. And he was absolutely ecstatic that his two groups of friends had been able to blend so seamlessly. Speaking of which…

The doors to the kitchen opened up and Lea walked out in a completely out of character black uniform, a tray of treats held in one hand. Roxas let out a snort; he couldn’t help it, Lea just looked so goofy dressed up as a waiter.

Lea caught the laugh and flicked Roxas in the forehead. “Hey, watch it. Bills don’t pay themselves, kid.” He set the tray down and held a hand out proudly. “You’ll see I’ve got your usual orders memorized. Crêpes Suzette for Hayner, chocolate mousse for Pence and Roxas–”

“Your accent is horrible, Axel,” Roxas said as he grabbed his plate.

“Just for that you’re on laundry duty tonight,” Lea shot back without missing a beat. “Last but not least, two fresh fruit compotes for Olette and– Oh. No Xion today?”

Olette took her fruit dessert from Lea while he looked over at the empty seat where Xion usually sat. She took a bite of strawberry and let out a sound of sugary delight before answering Lea’s question. “Xion’s off shopping with Isa today.”

“Isa, huh…?” With the unclaimed compote resting on the table, Lea spun the empty tray on his fingertip. He turned to Roxas, who stopped mid-bite and looked up at his friend with his spoon in his mouth. “Are you cool with that? I appreciate the effort Roxas, but the two of you don’t have to try so hard if it’s uncomfortable.”

Roxas stared down at the mousse for a contemplative moment. The others all noticed the atmosphere shift and looked between him and Lea. Their knowledge of everything was flimsy at best, but Roxas figured they must have at least caught on to how he and Xion would sometimes stiffen up around Isa.

“…I won’t lie and say it’s easy,” he said at last. Saïx had put both of them through hell in the old days, Xion especially. When Isa had been recompleted after the Keyblade Graveyard, Roxas had punched him right in the face. That had been _extremely_ cathartic. But he and Xion also knew Isa’s story, and why he had been the way he was. “You know we don’t forgive him, at least not yet. But we understand what he went through. So.”

“So?”

Roxas shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, I’m uncomfortable around Isa,” he admitted. “And I’m uncomfortable that Xion is around him, too. But we also know he’s your friend, and we know he wants a second chance. So Xion’s trying to give him that second chance, and who am I to stop her? They’re both taking steps to reach each other.”

For a moment Roxas swore Lea was going to cry. He turned away from the group and took a deep breath through his nostrils. “I gotta… go handle the other customers. Bon appétit, guys.” His voice shook a little, and as he walked away Roxas couldn’t help but smile. He was still a big softy, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

After some silence, Pence spoke up through a bite of mousse. “Hey Roxas! I betcha you can’t beat Hayner’s high score!”

Hayner spit out his crepe. “Hey, shouldn’t I be the one making that bet?!”

But Roxas had already pulled out his Gummiphone. “You’re on!”

“Hey, I never agreed to– Whatever, it’s not like you’ll be able to anyway!”

Roxas wiggled his eyebrows as he booted up Classic Kingdom. “Just watch.”

The brief awkward pause in their conversation was gone, and once again Roxas was swept up in memories of happier times. It was like he was back in summer all over again, just wasting time killing his teeth with sugary treats as he hung out with these three, whether it be arguing with Seifer and his gang or just sitting around in the usual spot.

Hayner let out a loud groan as Roxas beat the level in record time. He reached angrily for Roxas’s Gummiphone, and Roxas had to hold it up while Olette and Pence held Hayner back. Even then the four never stopped laughing. Finally Hayner relented and fell back in his seat with a huff.

“Fine, alright, you win! Guess I’ll just have to find something else to kick your butt in.”

Roxas pocketed his Gummiphone then pulled out his wallet as Lea came by with the bill. “Between this and Struggle, you may be running out of options.”

“Struggle?” Hayner dropped the munny for his own share of the bill onto the table then quirked an eyebrow at Roxas. “When did we have a Struggle match?”

“You don’t remember? It was last summe–“ Roxas caught himself. “…oh. Right.”

“Was that in the other Twilight Town?” Olette asked softly.

Roxas nodded and put his munny on the table with the others’. “Yeah. Right before summer vacation ended.” How was the other Twilight Town doing? How were his…other friends, doing? Things had been pretty surreal on that final day, and Roxas wasn’t sure what had or hadn’t actually happened then. Did they remember him? Did they wonder where he’d gone? He hadn’t been to the old mansion since he’d been recompleted, much less to Ansem’s computer room. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle it – a living memorial to one of the things that had been taken from him.

Roxas pushed his chair out and stood up. “If Axel comes by again, tell him I’ll see him at home tonight. I’m going out for a walk.”  
  
Hayner, Pence, and Olette all shared looks with each other. “Sure, man,” Pence said. “Whatever you need.”

With a nod and wave goodbye, Roxas made his way out of Le Grand Bistrot and up the streets of Twilight Town. Despite his earlier words to Lea, he found his mind wandering to Xion and Isa. What were they up to, and was she okay alone with him? He didn’t want to budge in where he wasn’t needed, but he just couldn’t help but worry. Not over Isa specifically, but just about…everything. Everything felt so fleeting.

Roxas reached for the Gummiphone in his pocket. He came to a stop and stared at the black screen. There was a feeling in his gut that everything would just slip through his fingers and disappear. There was no logical basis for it, he knew. But he was so scared of it all the same. Scared of being alone.

Roxas dialed a number and started walking again as the Gummiphone rang. Hayner had said once that what mattered was keeping your friends in your thoughts, even if you couldn’t see each other anymore. But Roxas couldn’t accept that. Having everything taken from a second time? That was the most terrifying thought in the world.

The ringing stopped, the girl on the other end picked up. “Roxas?”  
  
“Hey, Xion. What are you up to?”

“Not much. I’m still with Isa. Why, what’s up?”

“Nothing. Just wanted to talk.”

As Roxas moved through the familiar streets with his eyes on the Gummiphone, he didn’t notice the white figures wriggling their way across the orange sky and toward the forest.


	3. Normalcy

Mornings could be rough on Roxas. He didn’t have nightmares, not often at least, but sometimes he’d wake up thinking he’d been captured in a datascape again and momentarily panic, not used to seeing a bedroom beyond the Organization’s sterile white ones. Other times, if he were the first to wake up and the apartment was quiet, he would get worried that everyone had suddenly disappeared and force his way inside Xion or Lea’s rooms to make sure they were still there. But there were also days where he would wake up like a normal kid on a normal mornings, groggy but otherwise fine, and today happened to be one of those days.

Roxas never was and probably never would be a morning person. Even after he forced himself out of bed, showered, and made his way into their apartment’s small kitchen, he was still yawning and rubbing his eyes. As he turned the corner out of the hall, Roxas saw that two of his roommates were already awake. Isa was reading the newspaper, while Lea was devouring some reheated leftovers. When he saw Isa Roxas had to push down his first instinct, that first morning thought of _“I should pick up today’s mission.”_ Old habits die hard.

Lea looked up from his food and smiled. “Heya, Roxas.” Isa didn’t say anything, but he did give an awkward nod to the kid.

“Morning, Axel. Isa.” As they went back to their business, Roxas turned to find some breakfast of his own. Pancakes sounded good. But as he started getting everything out and heating the griddle, he felt eyes boring into the back of his head. With a jug of buttermilk in one hand and a pan in the other, Roxas turned around to see Isa watching him from the table. Uhh? “Have you um, eaten, Isa?”

“Yes. Thank you though. I was just thinking.” Isa smiled slightly then turned to Lea, who was all but licking his plate clean. “Lea, wasn’t there something you and Roxas spoke about the other day? You asked me to remind you this morning.”

“Hm?” With his fork in his mouth, Lea looked from Isa to Roxas then back to Isa. “Oh! Right! Roxas, you’re still helping out at the bistro today, right?”

Roxas nodded as he continued to work on his breakfast. “Yeah. I’ve got it memorized, Axel. Ignis said he’ll be running late today, so you need someone to help Little Chef in the kitchen. Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

“Good, because Mr. McD will take it out on me if you’re not.” Lea picked up his plate and moved over to the dishwasher. “And who better to help Little Chef than our own little chef, huh?”

Roxas groaned as Lea ruffled his hair, but it was all in good fun. Cooking was actually something he had picked up since they settled down in Twilight Town, that much was true. He enjoyed doing it, and he was capable even if not the best at it. It kept him occupied when he didn’t have anything going on in town, anyway. The last thing Roxas wanted was a repeat of his boring, wasted first vacation from back when they were still in the Organization.

Shuffling feet turned heads as Xion came down the hall, still in her pajamas and with her hair a mess. Lea hid his laughter behind his mouth, but Roxas watched her with concern as she sleepily greeted them and then got a glass of water. Had Xion had another nightmare last night? Roxas hadn’t heard her crying out or anything, but she sure didn’t look like she had gotten any sleep.

“Isa and Axel have already eaten, but do pancakes sound good to you?” Roxas asked.

Xion leaned her back against the counter as she cradled the glass in both hands. Her eyelids were drooping. “Uh-huh. Thanks.”

A frown tugged at Roxas’s lips. If the nightmare she’d had the other night was a recurring one, they’d need to find a way to fix that. For now though, he turned back to his cooking while he let Xion wake up.

Meanwhile, Lea had returned to the table. As he plopped down in his seat, he looked between Isa and Xion. “Any plans today for the two of you?”

Isa folded his newspaper and set it aside. “Well, I have the day off today–“

Lea grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

Despite being interrupted, Isa couldn’t hide his smile at Lea’s expense. “–so I’ll probably clean up around here. Maybe I’ll stop by the Tram Common to pick up some things Xion and I didn’t get to yesterday.”

Lea chuckled. “Where would we be without the team mom?”

Isa’s response was absolutely deadpan. “Up to your necks in dirty clothes, I’m sure.”

“Axel and I maybe, but Xion would keep us on our toes,” Roxas said from his spot at the griddle. He glanced back over his shoulder to see that Xion had sat down next to Lea, and she still looked kind of out of it. “Hey Xion, you have class today, don’t you?”

Roxas’s question seemed to make something inside Xion click, and for that first time this morning she seemed actually awake. “Yeah, actually! And I’m really looking forward to it, too! I wanted to show the instructor some moves I’ve been working on.”

As Xion continued to talk, Lea glanced at Roxas and Roxas grinned back at him. If there was one way to cheer her up, it was mentioning the dance lessons she’d been taking. She had picked them up only a few days after they moved into the apartment, and Roxas couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen something capture her interest so deeply.

“…and I did mess it up once with Olette, but…”

He wasn’t ignoring her as she kept going, but he did have food cooking. Roxas moved the pancakes off the griddle and onto a large plate, then grabbed syrup and carried it over the table. Xion paused from her story as he approached. “Roxas, it looks delicious!”

“Seriously, I already had breakfast and my mouth is still watering,” Lea said mournfully with his hands over his stomach.

Isa calmly picked up his own plate of long-finished food and stood up to clean it. “You don’t have any time, your shift starts soon.”

“What?! Come on Isa, it’ll only take a sec!” Isa ignored him, and so Lea turned to the kids. “Roxas!”

Roxas and Xion glanced at each other, nodded, and then Roxas smirked as Xion giggled. “You heard him, Lea. Better get ready for work.”

“Some friends you are!”

**x-x-x**

“Och aye, it’s good to have yer help, lad.”

There were two things Roxas wasn’t used to when speaking with others: being taller than the other person, and – despite everything that had happened – talking to anthropomorphic animals. It just so happened that when he spoke with Scrooge McDuck, he experienced both. Donald’s uncle was always smiling, but he also always had this air about him, something that told Roxas _“if you make me waste even one munny you’re out of here.”_ Luckily Roxas had a wonderful guide to help him out in the kitchen today.

Little Chef came running along on the floor. It was a sight that would have made customers panic at any other restaurant, but at Le Grand Bistro a rat in the kitchen was an everyday occurrence. He hopped up into Roxas’s open palm and gave his index finger a high-five. “Hey, Little Chef! I know I’m not as good a chef as Ignis, but I hope you’ll work with me today all the same.”

Little Chef gave a thumbs-up in response, and Scrooge cleared his throat. “Well I certainly hope so. I dunnae think we’ll be too busy today, but all the same that doesn’t mean ye should slack off. I expect ye to work as if this were your real job, my boy! If nothin’ else, it’ll be valuable experience for the future.”

Roxas shrugged while Little Chef scampered up his arm onto the top of his head. “I’m used to high expectations for me. Don’t worry about it, Mr. McDuck.”

Lea laughed as he picked up his notepad. “Don’t you worry about it, Mr. McD. I’ll make sure Roxas makes the grade.”

“If anything, I’d say Little Chef will be the one makin’ sure of that.”

Roxas tilted his head. “What do you mean by– _Ow_!” Little Chef tugged sharply on his hair, and Roxas’s arms lifted up. Hey, he hadn’t meant to lift them! “Wha–?!” Another painful tug, and against his will Roxas’s legs lifted up. He began awkwardly walking over to the fridge amidst Lea’s uproar of a laugh. “Um, Mr. McDuck?”

Even Scrooge was chuckling a little, though it was largely drowned out by Lea. “Now why would ye think he’s called Little Chef if he weren’t our chef? Ignis is who the lad’s got the most affinity with, but anyone will do.” He paused for a moment in thought and brought a hand to his chin. “Ye look about as awkward with it as Sora, though. I hope ye don’t break as many eggs as that boy did.”

Little Chef twisted his hair and Roxas’s body spun around on one foot. “I can crack an egg just fine. If I’m not being controlled, anyway!”

Lea’s laughter had died down by this point, at least a little. There was still a hint of in his voice as he spoke. “Come on, Roxas. You can’t make an omelet without–“

“Finish that sentence and every broken egg will come out of your paycheck, mister!” Scrooge snapped. “Now get out there and work, the customers are startin’ to come in!”

Lea gave a salute to Scrooge and a wave to Roxas, then headed out of the kitchen. Scrooge stopped at the doors and looked back. “Little Chef, I leave the boy in your care.”

Little Chef didn’t even wait for the door to close before he tugged painfully on Roxas once more and moved him over to a cabinet. “Alright, uh, what’s our first one then?”

Sweet relief; at Roxas’s question, Little Chef let go of his hair and jumped down onto the counter. He grabbed a cookbook and pushed it open, not without some effort, then excitedly pointed at the name of the dish he’d opened to. Roxas, on the other hand, was eyeing the rest of the page. Oh boy, the instructions were all in French. With a sigh, Roxas then looked up at the name.

“Ratatouille? Little Chef, I can’t read the… Alright then.” Little Chef had already started running up Roxas’s arm again before he could even finish his sentence. Roxas sighed dejectedly as another painful tug on his hair caused his hand to reach for a knife. Thanks a lot Lea, this was going to be a long, painful day. When the heck was Ignis supposed to show up?

**x-x-x**

It was a couple hours past noon as Xion made her way through the streets of Twilight Town with a bag of workout clothes over her shoulder and sweat matting her hair to her face. Today’s dance class had been fun, but like always it was quite the workout. Though that had actually been the initial reason she’d first tried the classes; without Organization missions or enemies to fight, she had wanted some way to stay active. Something else it helped with, which she hadn’t exactly told the others, was that it kept her mind off of her recurring nightmares. And the good news was, on top of all of that she’d found that she just plain enjoyed dancing! And the new moves she’d wanted to try had gone well, too. She’d messed it up while practicing with Olette the other day, but pulled it off great today.

Xion rounded a corner onto Market Street, where she caught sight of a familiar little figure at one of the stalls that lined the street. Clad in blue and with a pointy yellow hat, the little kid strained to see over the counter of a candy shop.

“Vivi!”

The little boy stumbled back in shock as Xion called his name from behind, but luckily he caught himself before he toppled over onto the ground. Adjusting his cap, Vivi turned around and looked up at her with his “Oh! Hi, Xion.”

“What are you up to today?” Xion set her bag down, then crouched down with her hands on her knees as she spoke to Vivi at eye level. He was a sweet kid, if a bit unaware at times. They’d first met when Xion had moved into town and found him playing alone in the sandlot. The group he’d hung out with had left town on a “warrior’s journey” some weeks before then, apparently, and Vivi wasn’t invited. The two had become fast friends, and sometimes Roxas would join in too though he’d privately admitted to Xion once that after some incident in the virtual Twilight Town Vivi kind of gave him the creeps. Xion didn’t feel that way at all, though. Sure he looked a bit odd compared to everyone else, but he was just a sweet little kid underneath that oversized hat of his.

“I’m just trying to get some ice cream, but the shopkeeper isn’t…” Vivi trailed off and looked up at the empty stall. Xion’s gaze followed his. Yeah, there was no sign of anyone. “Grandpa Quan game me the munny for it too, but I guess I’ll have to come back later.”

“That’s a real shame, huh? I don’t know the last time I saw the candy shop unmanned.” Xion stood up and shrugged. “I guess there’s not much to do right now besides that, though.” That really did suck though, she could go for some ice cream too.

“Sorry! Sooorrrrryy!”

A high-pitched voice made Xion and Vivi’s heads turn. A Moogle was barreling through the shoppers of Market Street without any regard for them, and he was headed straight for the candy shop! Xion ducked down just as the Moogle zoomed overhead and flew into the stall. He stopped on a dime before crashing into the merchandise, then collapsed onto the counter, panting.

“Um…”

“Heeeyy! Wait for me!” Coming up behind the Moogle – and unlike the Moogle apologizing to everyone he bumped into – was Pence. When he reached the candy shop he leaned against the wall as he stopped to catch his breath. “I can’t…fly…you know…”

“Sorry about that, kupo.” The Moogle crawled up to his feet, fluffed his pom-pom with his hands, and then looked between Xion and Vivi. “What can I get you?”

“Um…” Xion repeated for the second time. She looked to Pence for an explanation.

Pence smiled apologetically. “I’m helping him out at the shop today. We just had to deliver a cake to a kid’s birthday party though, sorry we left the shop unmanned. We were gone longer than expected.” He paused then leaned to the side to look behind Xion. “Oh. Hey there, Vivi.”

Vivi adjusted his hat. “H-Hello, Pence.”

“Hello, kupo! What can I get you? Wait…” The Moogle leaned forward with…well, Xion wanted to call at an investigative stare, but with Moogle eyes always looking closed she couldn’t tell. “Xion! It’s good to see you again! I’m so glad everything worked out.”

“Um, thanks?” Xion raised an eyebrow. The only shopkeepers she knew were Scrooge’s nephews and the old woman who ran the ice cream shop she, Lea, and Roxas frequented. But that wasn’t this shop. “And you are, um…?” He looked sort of familiar, but Moogles could be hard to tell apart.

“My name is of no importance, kupo.”

“Oh!” Xion’s hand flew to her mouth, and she grinned. “I didn’t know you’d come to Twilight Town. Yeah, it is good to see you again.”

“You know each other?” Vivi and Pence asked at the same time.

“Xion and Roxas are favorite customers of mine.”

Her grin not fading, Xion rested her hands on her hips. “Does that mean we get a friends discount?”

“Nope, kupo!”

Xion lowered her head in defeat. Fair enough. “Well, okay then. Two ice creams. I’ll have sea-salt, and Vivi…"

“Mint, please.” Vivi reached into his pocket and pulled out his allowance, but Xion had already beaten him.

“Don’t worry about it Vivi, I can pay for both of us.”

“Are you sure?”  
  
“Sure! I don’t see why not.” She handed over the munny, the Moogle handed over the ice creams, and Xion gave Vivi his green bar while taking a bite out of her blue. “Consider it a gift, okay?”

Even with his features hidden by the shadow of the brim of his hat, Xion could still see Vivi’s eyes light up. “Thank you, Xion!” He took it the ice cream with glee and a bit of a spring in his step. “I should go see Grandpa now. Bye bye!”

“Bye, Vivi!” Xion waved after him, and when he almost tripped over his own two feet she added, “And be safe on your way back!”

But behind her, Pence spoke up with a questioning tone. “He’s a good kid, but you ever feel something is off about him?”

Xion paused mid-bite. “…Not that I’ve seen, no. Why? Roxas said Vivi kind of creeps him out, but he also said that’s because of an incident with Nobodies in the other Twilight Town. It’s not like that’s the real Vivi’s fault.”

Though Vivi was long gone, Pence still kept his eyes on the road where the little boy had run. “Yeah… I guess if you didn’t know his story, you wouldn’t think he was anything but a shy kid.”

“His story?”  
  
“As much as there is one, I guess. I don’t even pretend to know everything.” Pence shrugged. “It was maybe a little over a year before you guys all moved in? There was one night where the whole town was just covered in mist, thick like soup. Vivi showed up out of nowhere then, and no one knew where he’d come from so old man Quan took him in. And on top of that it took a while for him to start talking, let alone start emoting. Hayner always tried to avoid him because of that; still does, kind of.”

Xion’s ice cream was all but forgotten now. She too stared down the road where Vivi had run. That certainly _did_ sound weird. And a little bit familiar too, especially the part where he took a while to develop emotions. Was Vivi a Nobody? No, he couldn’t be. But then what was his story? He certainly didn’t seem bothered by it, he was always cheerful even if shy…

“Hey Xion, your ice cream’s melting.”

“Oh!” Well that snapped her out of her thoughts. Xion licked the salty sweetness up before it got all over her hand, then picked up her bag. “Anyway, sorry Pence, I’ve got to run. Roxas and I are supposed to spar in the sandlot when he’s done at the bistro.”

“Sure. Keep up those key-sword skills of yours, alright?”

“Key _blade_!” Xion said with a laugh. As she ran off she turned back to the Moogle. “It was good seeing you!”

The Moogle waved a stubby little hand. “You too, kupo! And Pence, stop lollygagging and get back to work!”

**x-x-x**

By the time the sun was starting to set, Roxas groaned and rubbed his scalp. He could still feel Little Chef tugging at him, and he wouldn’t be surprised if some hair had gotten torn out with all that work today. Pretty much the moment Ignis had arrived Roxas had taken off. Still, he felt he did a pretty good job overall! Little Chef certainly seemed to like working with him. Though he didn’t know how Scrooge felt, and after the pretty dramatic way he had screwed up the chocolate mousse, maaaybe it was better if he didn’t see the old duck for a while.

“Hey! You ready?”

Across the sandlot, Xion stood proud with her hands on her hips and her feet planted firmly in the sand. Roxas shook his head and laughed. “I’m surprised you’re so eager to do this after just having your dance classes today.”

“Nothing wrong with a bit more exercise. Ready or not, here I come!” In a flash of light her Kingdom Key was in her hands and she was dashing toward him. Roxas cried out in shock and summoned Oathkeeper to block moments before she would have slammed the Keyblade upside his head.

“Give me some more warning!” With Oathkeeper fighting back against Kingdom Key, Roxas held his other hand out to his side. In one fluid motion Oblivion formed in a flash of black light and then swung at Xion, but Xion spun from the front of Roxas to his side to avoid it. Then she dropped to the ground, propped herself up with one hand, and swung her legs out from beneath her to trip Roxas up.

He was too blindsided to avoid it. Did she just _breakdance_ in the middle of a fight?

While Roxas fell back into the sand, Xion was already back on her feet. Embers crackled to life at the tip of her Keyblade. She always was better at magic than him. When the Fire spell came flying his way, Roxas jumped up to his feet – and _vanished_. His body dissipated into particles of light that the fireball passed harmlessly through. The particles flew as one behind Xion, and an instant later the particles coalesced to form Roxas once again. From the air he brought Oathkeeper and Oblivion down as one, forming an X-shaped eruption of blue and gold flames on the ground where they slashed.

As the embers from the attack faded away Roxas held his two Keyblades in front of him with their hilts against each other. Xion may have been better at magic than he was, but he wasn’t helpless at it. The two Keyblades spun in front of Roxas and from them came two spiraling bullets of blue and gold magic. Xion braced herself and knocked the one from Oblivion aside where it dissipated harmlessly, but Oathkeeper’s slammed into her chest and sent her skidding back.

Roxas dropped to the ground and darted at Xion with his Keyblades held out to his sides. Both swung up at Xion to her right, but she swiftly brought her Kingdom Key up to block. So Roxas quickly pinned her Keyblade down with Oathkeeper and lifted Oblivion to swing at her shoulder. Xion in turn let go of her trapped Keyblade and dropped to the ground once more, this time raising her legs and kicking Roxas’s swinging hand aside.

Roxas winced and shook his hand. The heel of her boot had collided with his wrist. “Did you seriously take those dance classes just to show off in a fight?”

Xion giggled and summoned her Keyblade back into her grip. “No, but they certainly help!”

She launched a handful of Blizzard spells forward, the ice chards racing through the air. Roxas splintered one, two, three with his Keyblades as he ran toward Xion, but he missed the fourth. It struck his right foot and froze him there on the spot. But with only one foot locked in place, Roxas’s left side flew forward awkwardly. Xion avoided the slowed swing, more of a trip really, and darted toward Roxas with her Keyblade ready.

But it had been a feint. Once more Roxas vanished into the light, freeing him from Xion’s ice. The light darted some yards away before reforming into Roxas’s body, his Keyblades crossed in front of him. This time he struck Xion before she could block, then as she flinched he jumped away before she could retaliate. Once more: in, rapid strikes, out. Xion cast a Fire spell, but Roxas moved aside to avoid it. She sent another forward, and he dodged that one too. If there was one thing he was good at in a fight, it was never holding still.

Xion threw up Reflect to block another spiraling blue and gold blast; a wall of interlinking hexagons was all that Roxas’s spell collided against. And this time when he charged in Xion met him head on. She brought her Keyblade up and blocked Oathkeeper, then down and blocked Oblivion, then – Roxas struck with Oblivion a second time, when Xion had expected Oathkeeper. Roxas watched as her Keyblade flew through the air and landed in the sand some distance away.

“Looks like I win–“

_WHAM!_

Roxas felt something large and hard slam into him, and the next thing he knew he was lying next to Xion’s Keyblade while seeing stars.

“Sorry! Are you okay?!” Xion cried. Letting out a low groan, Roxas looked up to see Xion running toward him with a massive blue claymore in her hands. Isa’s weapon disappeared in a flash of light and she dropped to her knees beside Roxas while casting Cure.

“Just...dazed,” Roxas admitted as he felt the healing magic work through his system. “I should have seen that coming. My fault for taking my eyes off the fight.”

Xion sighed in relief. “Yeah, I guess so. I should have warned you it was coming, though.”

Roxas sat up and crossed his legs. Xion moved from kneeling to sitting beside him, too. He shook his head. “Nah. I knew you could do that, so like I said: I should have seen it coming. Being able to copy weapons is handy, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.” Xion shrugged and stared down at her palm. Roxas watched a familiar look of focus and thoughtfulness cross her features, and then in an instant a bat wing-shaped sword appeared in her grasp. It disappeared soon after in a cloud of darkness, which was quickly replaced by a flash of light as she settled on the Kingdom Key. “I prefer my Keyblade overall, though. It’s just what I’m used to.”

Roxas nodded. “I can’t say I blame you for that.”

Xion’s ability to copy weapons and powers was… Well, it was something that Roxas had known about for a while, obviously, given everything that had happened in Organization XIII. But it wasn’t until this second life of theirs that both of them truly came to realize how in-depth it could go. Any weapon that Xion held onto for a decent length of time – like how she had borrowed Roxas’s Keyblade for several missions back in the Organization – was a weapon she could replicate and use herself. She had wielded Isa’s claymore against Sora, Lea, and Kairi while she was still one of Xehanort’s vessels, and she had copied some others during that time too. But the Keyblade was hers.

Roxas stood up, then held out a hand to help Xion to her feet. “What do you say we head home? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Xion dismissed her Keyblade and nodded. “Yeah, sounds good. And when Axel gets off work we can go to the clock tow–“

“H-HELP!!”

A panicked scream came from the direction of the Tram Common, and both of them turned to it as one. Even if their weapons had just vanished, they already were in their hands again. A man neither Roxas nor Xion recognized ran into the sandlot in a wide-eyed panic, and continued running past the two of them while crying out for help to anyone who’d listen. “Monsters! At the mansion! Those white creatures are in town again!”

Roxas felt a chill run down his spine. “Nobodies?!”

Ahead of him, Xion was already moving toward the entrance to the woods. “Roxas, hurry!”

* * *

 

_Scrooge’s accent always has and probably always will give me trouble._

_Thanks for reading! I can’t gush enough about how much I loved that Xion was using the claymore and berserk mode in KH3. It opens up so much potential for her fight scenes. Power copying characters are so much fun to work with. As for Roxas’s light dodge, that really is something he had in 3 too. Xion incorporating dancing into her fighting, well yeah, that’s new. I wanted to differentiate her style from Sora’s. What do you think?_


	4. Scene of the Crime

The door to the underground waterway flung open as Roxas and Xion emerged into the woods outside of Twilight Town. Xion groaned and scraped her boots against the grass to clean them off. It may have been nice to not have a giant hole ruining the town’s outer wall anymore, but there needed to be a better way into the woods. There was no time to dwell on that though, not with Nobodies in the area.

“Xion, hurry!” Roxas called from up ahead of her.

Twigs and dead leaves crunched beneath Roxas and Xion’s feet as they ran through the forest, but those were the only sounds they heard. There was an unnatural quiet amidst the trees. Normally you could hear birds singing or squirrels chittering away, but there was nothing of the sort. The Nobodies must have scared them off. But why now of all times? The Organization was gone – both Organizations. In fact, the only humanoid Nobodies left at all were the two of them, Naminé, and Demyx. But Demyx wasn’t smart enough to tie his own shoes, so who was commanding the lesser Nobodies?

Between breaths as they ran, Roxas spoke in answer to her unvoiced question. “Could it be Xehanort?”

Xion almost tripped over in surprise at his question. “ _What_?"

“Demyx still has a piece of Xehanort inside of him. Xehanort’s other selves can time travel to any period where a version of him exists. Could Demyx be the way for someone like Xemnas to come to the present?”

 _There_ was a terrifying thought. Xion felt a chill run up her spine. But… “No, I don’t think so. Well, he could, but he wouldn’t have a replica vessel this time. He’d just be a heart without a body.”

There was a pause before Roxas nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. But who then?”

“I don’t know, and that’s what scares me.” Xion jumped over a fallen log and landed without breaking her stride. “Maybe it’s just some random group of Dusks that put together a plan on their own.”

“You really think so?” There was an almost laughing tone in Roxas’s voice.

“Not really, no,” Xion admitted. “But we can hope, right?”

With no other words between them, they climbed the hill and the mansion came into view. That old and empty manor where so much had happened for the two of them, still as abandoned as it had been ever since Ansem the Wise left it. It always gave Xion a sort of uncomfortable feeling, and she knew Roxas didn’t like to come by it. As they entered the courtyard, Roxas turned to look up at the window to Naminé’s room.

But aside from a general feeling of unease, there was nothing off about the mansion. The courtyard was empty of any sign of trespassers, and the front doors were shut tight. “False alarm?” Xion wondered.

Roxas shook his head. “I doubt it, that guy was pretty freaked out.”

“Then maybe we’re too late? I’d expect to see Dusks–“

As if in response to Xion, the front doors slammed open and numerous wriggling white forms flew out of the mansion’s foyer. Immediately Xion and Roxas dropped into their battle stances with their Keyblades ready, unwilling to let the Nobodies pass. The shapeless white forms came to a halt and then spun around in circles, forming into a multitude of Dusks. The swaying, undulating figures stood at the far end of the courtyard from Xion and Roxas, eyeing them carefully. It was a standoff.

 **We are not here to harm you, my lieges.** One of the Dusk’s emotionless voices echoed in Xion’s head, and she could only guess Roxas heard it too.

“What are you doing here?” Roxas demanded of the group.

 **A mission of restoration.** Xion couldn’t tell if that was the same Dusk or a different one. They all sounded the same; all lesser Nobodies did.

“Restoration?” Roxas and Xion glanced at each other, but then tightened their grips on their Keyblades and looked back to the Dusks. “Sorry, but when Nobodies are involved it’s bad news. We can’t let you pass!”

There was nothing said in reply. Instead, the Dusk at the front of the group wriggled its body and turned its head upward. The others soon followed, and the zippers keeping their mouths shut tight unzipped all at once. Fine then. If they wanted a fight, they’d get one.

Roxas made the first move. He darted forward like a bolt of lightning and was upon the Nobodies in an instant. The Dusks scattered, some weaving through the air and others squirming along the ground, but Roxas spun like a top with both Keyblades held out to strike as many as possible. But some had gotten clear of the area beforehand and avoided his attack entirely, and they couldn’t have that. Xion swept her hand in a wide arc from left to right in front of her, conjuring a series of fireballs. With a thrust of her Keyblade, they flames flew forward and struck the flying Dusks. They writhed as their nonexistent bodies caught fire.

Roxas jumped up and grabbed one of the airborne Dusks with Oblivion’s teeth, then spun and tossed the Nobody into one of its comrades down below. The two Dusks collided and their bodies quivered, then they quickly recovered and charged at Roxas together. They jabbed and kicked at Roxas with their whiplike limbs, knocking him into one of the stone pillars in the courtyard.

Xion ducked out of the way of her own Dusk assailant and darted around it, confusing it momentarily as it whipped its head back and forth looking for her. A jab forward and her Keyblade pierced the Dusk’s chest; soon after, it faded away into darkness. Xion winced as the wisps of black and grey lifted into the sky. She had never killed a Nobody before… But she shook her head, trying to clear the guilt away. This was good, it meant they would be recompleted. It was still hard to deal with though.

Another Dusk struck at Xion from behind, making her stumble forward. She quickly whirled around to slice at the Dusk, but it stretched out of the way and attacked again from her side. Roxas’s Keyblades flew past Xion and pierced through the attacking Dusk as well as one other, causing the two Nobodies to fade away. The Keyblades were swiftly followed by a bolt of light that quickly materialized into Roxas, who grabbed his Keyblades in midair and cross-slashed at a third Dusk.

Roxas stood back to back with Xion. “Why are so many here?”

“Who knows? But at this point we can say for sure that they’re being directed by someone.” A random Nobody attack wouldn’t have these numbers.

Roxas darted forward again, and Xion raised up her Keyblade to cast Thunder. As bolts of lightning rained down on the courtyard she ran in the opposite direction from Roxas and swung her leg out, knocking two Dusks into each other before throwing her Keyblade at them and piercing both. The Keyblade quickly flashed into her hands again and she swung at a third Dusk that came at her.

The Dusk squirmed and lashed out at her, but the way it did so was off somehow. It lunged just one stretchy arm at her, which Xion easily dodged. She swung at it and it contorted to avoid the blow, then jabbed with that same arm again. Its other hand was clutched tightly to its chest, like it was broken or something. Could Dusks even get broken limbs? Did they have any bones to break in the first place? This was just odd. Xion kept focusing her attacks on that Dusk and it kept avoiding her blows then striking halfheartedly with the same arm over and over. Was it holding something? If so, it was something too small for Xion to make out. The Dusk stretched tall and then pulled its lower body up to greet the rest of it, pulling it up into the sky.

“Come back here!” Xion cast Fire a few times at the Nobody, but it avoided each fireball. “Roxas, this one is up to something!”

“I got it!” Roxas tossed one of his Keyblades at the Dusk and then transformed into light. His Keyblade pierced into the wall of the mansion next to the Nobody and Roxas materialized a moment later, hanging onto the Keyblade and hanging in the air. He pointed his other weapon at the Dusk and sent a burst of light its way, which once again the Dusk avoided. Now the Nobody spiraled around in the air a few times and started flying off over the trees away from town.

Roxas released his grip and dropped to the ground, then called his Keyblade back and struck at a different Dusk. He looked up at the retreating figure in the sky. “What’s up with that one?”

“Hey, come back here!” Xion held her hand out and pictured herself gripping a cross-shaped handle. As her fingers curled around the imaginary grip, thorny black and white wisps swirled around her arm and toward her hand. They coalesced together and formed into one of Lea’s chakrams, which she then tossed skyward. The spinning, spiked disc flew toward the Nobody and almost made contact, but at the last instant the Nobody vanished. Xion let out a frustrated groan and waved her hand, dismissing the replication. It faded away like the Nobody had.

“Xion!” Roxas called her attention back to their surroundings, where the other Nobodies had begun to disappear just like their companion. Roxas sent spiraling bolts of gold and purple light out from Oathkeeper and Oblivion, but his targets faded away before he could hit them. Xion hurriedly tossed her Keyblade at the last remaining Dusk, and it made contact – then the Dusk faded away and the Keyblade fell to the ground and vanished in a flash of light.

The Nobodies were all gone, as if they had never been there in the first place. Roxas dismissed his Keyblades and looked around at the empty courtyard, where the only signs of the battle that had just occurred were his and Xion’s footsteps in the grass. “That…was weird. What was with that fleeing one, was it scared or something?”

Xion frowned and shook her head. She stared up at the sky where the fleeing Dusk had been. “I think it had something, it was clutching its hand to its chest.”

“Huh? Wait, you mean…” Roxas peered through the open doors into the dimly-lit interior of the mansion. “You think they stole something from the old mansion?”

“Maybe? If they did it was something small, I couldn’t see whatever that Dusk had.”

“What would they even want, though?” When Xion shrugged helplessly in response to Roxas’s question, Roxas let out a breath and looked into the woods. “Let’s go talk to Axel. If nothing else we should tell him what happened.”

“Right.” And with a nod, the two ran back toward town.

**x-x-x**

There was another forest, another world, far from Twilight Town – a forest shrouded in the soft blue light of the early morning. He had always liked this time of day, when the sun had only just barely risen and the dew was still on the grass and flowers. Daybreak brought with it a sense of nostalgia, a longing for times gone by. Granted, he wasn’t entirely sure why that was.

Something he was sure of, however, was that the wheels had begun to turn. Was he marching in time with destiny, or was he moving to his own tune? He didn’t know, but he certainly hoped it was the latter. No matter how little he truly knew, he didn’t feel like cooperating with destiny. That much was etched into his heart.

In the middle of this forest at early dawn, he held out his hand and unfurled his closed fist. With a spark of magic older than him, older perhaps than the ground that he stood upon, a shimmering and translucent χ symbol appeared over his open palm – a trick taught to him by an old man not so long ago. Peering into the χ, an image of two who still bore the Recusant’s Sigil in their names slowly materialized. Roxas and Xion ran through the streets of Twilight Town in a hurry. They had attempted to interfere with his plans, but the Dusk with the flash drive got away safely. Still, they would definitely catch wind of what was going on sooner or later. It was best to keep an eye on them.

The man made a small gesture and the image within the χ shifted, showing another bearer of the Sigil. He slept unsoundly while sitting in a chair, snoring loudly next to one of his former companions in Organization XIII. This one never was one for combat, but he was also the only person besides the children who could potentially interfere with the plan. He’d need to be taken care of.

“Are you done yet?” The man’s companion spoke up behind him. He looked over to her, sitting on a large rock with her chin resting in her hands and her elbows on her knees. “I’m pretty bored.”

The man waved his hand through the air and the glowing χ disappeared. He turned to his companion with a wry grin. “Come now, don’t insult it. This world is my home. What do you think?”

“It’s pretty, but not much else to it. Hey, same as you!” She cackled at her own (poor, in his opinion) joke. “Why are we here? Shouldn’t we meet up with the Dusks?”

“We will soon, but I had to make a stop here to speak with some old friends.” With a nod of his head, he motioned into the woods. “They know much about sleep. They will definitely be able to help us fill in any blanks the data might have.”

His companion slid off the rock and hurried to catch up to him. “Will they help us after everything we’ve done?”

“What you should be asking is, do they even know what we’ve done? We’ll ask a few harmless questions and then be on our way.”

He heard her scoff behind him. “Harmless, right.”

He smiled and shook his head. Her attitude hadn’t changed a bit. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Speaking of things that hadn’t changed a bit… After a short walk through the morning woods, they came across a clearing with a sparkling river flowing through it. Beside the river, just as he remembered it, was a small cottage. Gesturing for his companion to wait at the tree line, he approached the humble abode and lightly knocked on the front door. Soon after there were sounds of surprise and some clattering coming from inside; no doubt they hadn’t been expecting visitors. But a moment later the door creaked open and a little old lady in green poked her head out.

“Yes? Oh my!” She gasped and broke into a wide grin at the sight of her visitor.

He returned the expression and gave a small bow. “It’s been a long time. May I come in?”

“Goodness, yes it has! Come in, come in; I’ll go get the others! And I’ll prepare tea and cake, too!”

He laughed. And it was a genuine laugh, not a facade. It was so good to see her again. “Thank you, but I’m afraid I can’t be here too long, I have some errands to attend to. But I was hoping you three could help me with something first.”

“Anything, dear! What would you like?” She turned inside for a moment and called over her sisters. After going through essentially the same greeting two more times, he apologetically looked over his shoulder at his scowling companion while the three kind old women practically pulled him inside their cottage.

“How can we be of help?” It was so good to see these three, in this house, and for a moment he felt like a boy again. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine himself here in those peaceful days. Everything was as it always had been, right down to the detail. But… _he_ had changed.

What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

“It’s very important. What do you know about the Sleeping Worlds?”

**x-x-x**

“Nobodies?! Guys, you shoulda told me!”

Lea paced back and forth in Le Grand Bistrot’s small break room while Xion and Roxas sat at the table. His shift wasn’t over, but when Roxas and Xion had barged through the restaurant’s front door, panting and with frantic expressions, he had quickly decided to take his break. In fact Scrooge had insisted, lest Roxas and Xion’s demands to see Lea upset the customers.

“Sorry, but we were in a hurry!” Roxas said. “We were worried they’d make their way into town or something.”

“I…guess that’s fair,” Lea admitted with some hesitation. He stopped pacing and looked at the two kids with concern. “So what was it? Just a couple Dusks skulking about?”

“Try a dozen or so, and they probably stole something too.”

Lea raised an eyebrow. “Explain, kiddo.”

Roxas looked over to Xion, who opened her mouth to speak when a ringing sound cut her off. Xion and Lea looked at Roxas, who stared down at himself in confusion and patted his clothes as he tried to figure out where the ringing was coming from. He stood up from his chair and reached into his back pocket, pulling out his Gummiphone. After a wordless glance at his two friends, Roxas pressed the green button to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Roxas, hello!” A familiar face popped up on the screen as Xion and Lea peered over Roxas’s shoulders to join in on the call. And what an unusual call it was: from a far-off world, Ansem the Wise’s youngest apprentice Ienzo greeted the trio. “And Lea and Xion are with you as well, that’s excellent.”

“Ienzo, this is, uh…a surprise,” Roxas said. “You don’t call very often.”

“What’s the occasion?” Lea asked. “Sorry, but we’re kind of in the middle of something so–“

Ienzo hastily cut Lea off. “As am I. In fact, it’s something of an emergency.” The three friends glanced at each other and then back to the young researcher. “Has anything strange happened in Twilight Town recently? Have you seen anyone you didn’t recognize, or someone acting suspiciously? Specifically at or around the old mansion.”

Roxas almost dropped his phone. He and Xion looked at each other with wide eyes, and then Ienzo let out a worried chuckle.

“I guess I can see just from your expressions.”

Xion leaned in more. “There were a bunch of Dusks at the mansion about an hour ago, maybe. But how did you know?”

“Dusks? Now that’s especially worrisome…” The scene on the screen shifted as Ienzo set his own Gummiphone down, revealing that he stood in the computer room within Radiant Garden’s castle. The phone must have been sitting on some stand now, since they watched Ienzo start to type. “It was about an hour ago, give or take, when the MCP first noticed that something was wrong in the DTD, too.”  
  
“Uh, and those are…?” Roxas asked.

Instead of Ienzo, a new face popped up on the screen to answer. “’Master Control Program’ and ‘Door to Darkness’. Respectively, they’re the AI in charge of the Bastion’s computer network and the dataspace where all of Ansem’s and the apprentices’ research data is stored.”

Roxas, Xion, and Lea stared dumbfounded at the newcomer. He had pale grey skin and was dressed in blue glowing armor, and all three of them had seen neither him nor anyone even remotely like him in their lives. “Uh…”

The strange man chuckled. “Sorry, I suppose we haven’t been introduced. My name is Tron; I am the MCP. I contacted Ienzo when I became aware that our security had been compromised.”

“Someone hacked into the Bastion’s computer?” Xion asked.

Now Tron vanished from the Gummiphone screen and Ienzo appeared. He turned from the keyboard and picked up his phone to speak to them directly again. “Essentially, yes. Somebody broke into our network and stole research data. We have no idea who or why.”

“What data?”

Ienzo sighed and shook his head. “That’s something else we don’t know. We know it’s something from Xehanort’s time as an apprentice, but we apprentices covered quite a lot during that period. It could be anything.”

Roxas grimaced. “Still, whatever it is, if it’s something Xehanort worked on even partially…”

Ienzo nodded. “Right. It can’t be good news. Tron and I have already started trying to figure out what the stolen data was about, but that will take some time.”

Lea leaned in. “I thought the DTD was an isolated system. It shouldn’t be possible to break into it from the outside, right? And anyway, why call us? What does this have to do with Nobodies at the old mansion?”

“Both of your questions have the same answer.” Ienzo turned to the keyboard one more time, but only for a moment. With the press of a button, the video feed of him in the computer room was replaced by a graphic representing the two worlds of Radiant Garden and Twilight Town. Stylized computer monitors were superimposed on the two worlds, with a blue line linking the two.

“Back when Sora and I were trying to find a way to bring you back, Roxas, we networked Master Ansem’s computer in the mansion’s basement with the Hollow Bastion OS here in Radiant Garden. That way I could access the virtual Twilight Town from here while working on creating your replica body, but…”

“…but it also gave outsiders a way in,” Xion said slowly, finishing Ienzo’s thought. Roxas glanced at her. While he had never been as bad with computers with Sora, this stuff was still a little over his head. But Xion always had been a more tech-savvy than him; after all, she had hacked into the Organization’s classified files once while trying to figure out who she was.

The graphic disappeared, replaced with Tron. “Right. That was an oversight on our part, and one we should have seen coming. By networking Twilight Town and Radiant Garden together, we accidentally created an entry point for anyone outside the Bastion to easily access the DTD.”

Back to Ienzo. “That’s why I called you to ask if anything had happened at the mansion recently. The Bastion has plenty of security, so anyone trying to reach one of our computer terminals would be caught easily. But the mansion is abandoned. If someone knew about the computer there, there would be nobody keeping an eye out to stop them from accessing it.”

Roxas gasped and looked over at Xion. “That Dusk who had something!”

“It has to be!” Xion said with a nod. “Ienzo, when Roxas and I were fighting the Nobodies at the mansion, one of them was holding something tightly to its chest and fled before the battle was over.”

Ienzo nodded as well. “That’s what I was afraid of. But why would Nobodies – or heaven forbid, somebody ordering them around – steal Xehanort’s research data? I suppose that’s something we won’t be able to answer until we know what the data was about.”

Yeah, perhaps, but it still left a really uneasy feeling in Roxas’s gut. “Is there something we can do to help speed that up?”

Ienzo shook his head with a smile. “Thanks, but no, Tron and I are working on it. I just called you to make sure my suspicions about where the hackers came from were correct.”

“Well the least we can do is start keeping a better eye on the mansion,” Lea chimed in.

“Thank you. And I’ll contact you when we have an idea about the data–“ The noise of a door slamming open caught Ienzo’s attention, and he looked off-camera with a surprised expression. Roxas got a bit disoriented as the screen of his Gummiphone blurred and shifted while Ienzo turned to look at the person who, judging by the speed of his footfalls, ran into the room in a hurry. “Aeleus? What’s going on?”

The three in Twilight Town couldn’t see much of what was going on at Radiant Garden’s end as Ienzo held his Gummiphone at his side, and Aeleus’s voice was distant since he wasn’t right up against the microphone.

“Ienzo, downstairs!” From the sound of things, Aeleus was trying to catch his breath as he spoke.

“The Chamber of Repose?” The screen blurred again, and then Lea, Roxas, and Xion were staring at the walkway that led to Ansem’s lab. Ienzo must have hurriedly turned from Aeleus to the large window overlooking the laboratory’s lower floor.

“It’s Demyx! Demyx just disappeared!”

“What?!” Ienzo’s shout was simultaneous with the trio’s own.

“We were guarding the hall outside the Chamber. I looked away for just a second, I hear the door open, and the next thing I know he’s gone!”

Lea grabbed the Gummiphone from Roxas and practically shouted into it. “Are you sure he didn’t just go and take a nap somewhere?”

At the sound of his voice, Ienzo held up his Gummiphone so they could see both him and Aeleus. The large man shook his head. “No. There’s nowhere to hide in the Chamber. But Demyx might be the least of our concerns. Ienzo, the Keyhole in the Chamber – it started glowing! It’s so bright I was practically blinded.”

“The Keyhole?! Aeleus, go alert Master Ansem!” Without a word, he ran off toward Ansem’s study. Ienzo looked down at his phone. “Roxas, Xion, Lea. I take it I can count on you three to come investigate the Keyhole?”

Roxas took his phone back from Lea. “Do you even need to ask? We’ll hurry over right away!”

Ienzo breathed a sigh of relief. So much was going on at once. “Excellent. Then I’ll call Riku to bring the Gummi Ship to Twilight Town–“

“Don’t worry about it. Aqua, Terra, and Ven taught us how to get around without a ship, and the others all know how, too. It’d take too long to pick us all up and then go to Radiant Garden.”

“Alright then. Please hurry over here, and I’ll inform the other Keyblade wielders.”

“You got it!” Roxas was already on his feet as he hung up and pocketed his Gummiphone. In fact, he was already headed for the door. As he reached for the doorknob, it turned and opened on its own. Isa stood in the doorway with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s the rush?”  
  
“Isa! Cover for me!” From behind Roxas, Lea tossed his apron and notepad at Isa then dashed past him and into the dining area.

“Lea?”

“Sorry, Keyblade emergency!” Roxas called behind him without looking back, as he darted past Isa next. Xion followed soon after, leaving their dumbfounded friend holding Lea’s uniform.

“We’ll need to grab our black coats from home before using the Lanes Between,” Xion reminded the boys as the trio emerged into the sunset streets of the Tram Common.

Roxas nodded. “Right. Then let’s hurry!"


	5. The Flood of Light

With a flash of light, three gates opened in the sunny, cloudless sky. The blue and white holes in reality hummed with power, but were only there for an instant as three flying shapes emerged from them, one per gate, and then the gates vanished as if they had never been. Aboard their Keyblade Gliders and clad in black leather coats that had protected them from the darkness of the Lanes Between, Lea, Xion, and Roxas looked out at the world beneath them: a circular walled city surrounded by water with a giant castle in the dead center. Radiant Garden.

Although they knew it was the world Lea had come from, Roxas and Xion had only been here once before, shortly after the Keyblade Graveyard along with everybody else. That was Isa had been recompleted though, so a combination of Lea being in a hurry to go see him and all three of them being so dead tired after all the fighting meant that the two hadn’t gotten a good look at the world. As all three circled clockwise around the castle, the younger pair looked out over the city.

The town was divided into four quarters by stone walls and stretched nearly 360 degrees around the castle, save for the western quarter which was occupied by beautiful green gardens. A bustling marketplace was elevated above the northern quarter, and at the base of the wall on which the market sat was a courtyard full of dazzling water fountains. The three Gliders continued their circular route, pulling more and more inward toward the castle as they approached the eastern quarter – the residential district. The homes continued into the southern quarter save for the area right in front of the Bastion’s front doors, where the mess of buildings cleared away for the town square. Roxas looked south of the square, beyond the city’s outer wall, where a stone bridge stretched out across the enormous shimmering lake which Radiant Garden sat in the center of. On the horizon he could make out rolling green hills. Everything here was so beautiful; no wonder it was called the city of light.

“Guys, this way.” As the two of them continued to look out over all the sights of Radiant Garden, Lea’s voice pulled Roxas and Xion back to reality. They turned to him with bashful expressions, and Lea laughed. “I know it’s a pretty place and all, but we’ve got things to focus on right now.”

“Right. Sorry,” Roxas said. Then a pause and a glance down below them at the town square. “I just can’t believe you used to live here, Axel.”

“Honestly? Me neither. It feels like a lifetime ago.”

The trio descended on the Bastion, landing on a circular orange-brown platform at the base of the giant structure – the castle postern. When they were only about two yards up, as one they dismissed their Keyblade Gliders and dropped onto the stone floor. Once he had no more need for it, Roxas wasted no time in unzipping his coat and tossing it aside. A moment later, Xion’s followed.

Xion moved to pick up the abandoned coats from the ground, but Roxas shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder. “Leave them for now.”

Xion looked at Roxas, back to the coats, and then to Lea who was already making his way for the door. She shrugged. “I guess so. We’ll have to come back for them later though.”

Roxas looked like he was about to roll his eyes, but instead he just motioned toward the stairs. “The sooner we visit those fairies, the better. Come on, let’s catch up to Axel.”

The inner halls of the Bastion were a maze that put Twilight Town’s underground tunnels to shame. Last time they were here, Xion had actually gotten lost in them on the way to the room where Isa had been resting. This time Lea led them the whole way through and never missed a single turn. As their hurried footsteps echoed through the dark hall, he explained over his shoulder, “Isa and I broke in here all the time as kids. Even after all these years I’ve got the path memorized.”

Xion quirked an eyebrow. “Aren’t we going to the deepest part of the castle? What were the two of you doing sneaking all the way into there?”

“Oh uh, you know, boys will be boys.” With an awkward, forced chuckle Lea turned the corner…and ran into something. All Roxas and Xion saw from their vantage point a little ways back was him stumbling backward. Lea rubbed his nose and let out an agitated grunt. “What’s the big idea standing right around the corner?!”

“Sorry,” came the halfhearted reply. As Roxas and Xion caught up, they saw a tall, broad-shouldered man. Behind him the hall changed dramatically. While they had been surrounded by cold and dark metal walls, this last stretch of hallway was considerably better lit and even had some nice pale yellow wallpaper. The guard whom Lea had collided with gave a half smile. “Boys will be boys, huh? I’ll have to remember that the next time a pair of little brats try to break the lock to Master Ansem’s study.”

“You make it sound like we didn’t succeed,” Lea muttered.

“Xal–“ Xion quickly jabbed her elbow into Roxas’s side. “Dilan!”

Ansem’s apprentice gave the two of them a silent nod in greeting, then stepped to the side and motioned to the door at the end of the hall. “The others are waiting.”

“We’re the last to arrive?” asked Xion. But Dilan was already shaking his head before her question finished.

“Not yet, no. So I’ll wait out here for the rest of the Keyblade wielders. You head in and get caught up on the situation, though.”

“Roger that, big guy.” Lea slapped his hand down on Dilan’s shoulder, but when Dilan said nothing, Lea slowly pulled his hand back and then looked to the kids. “Come on.”

The door opened to a well-lit study with bookcases and diagrams lining the walls, but Lea didn’t pay it any mind. He continued right on through to the door on the opposite end of the room, and so despite their curiosity Roxas and Xion also ignored the study that was practically begging them to dig through it and opted instead to follow Lea. Once more they were surrounded by cold metal walls, but that wasn’t something that really bothered them when there was such a sight in front of them. Roxas’s jaw dropped and Xion let out an audible gasp, then both ran past Lea and leaned forward with their hands on the railings.

“What _is_ this?!” Xion asked with wide eyes. She and Roxas looked all around them, taking in the sight of the machinery and countless capsules that lined the absolutely massive chamber they found themselves in.

“The Heartless Manufactory. This is where Xehanort and the others created the Emblem Heartless.” Lea stepped up beside the two of them and directed their gazes downward with a point of his finger. On the floor of the Manufactory far, far below them was a rectangular entrance to a spiraling ramp leading even further down beneath the earth, with several figures too small for them to make out standing nearby. “Down there is where we’re headed. That way leads to the Chamber of Repose and the Keyhole. Come on.”

With a wave of his hand Lea led them into a familiar computer room, the place they had seen in the background while Ienzo spoke to them on the Gummiphone. Roxas also recalled being here very, very briefly when his heart and joined his new body, but that had only been for an instant before he had teleported to the Keyblade Graveyard. Past the Bastion’s main computer and to the elevator, then down to the floor of the Heartless Manufactory.

As the elevator opened, the trio was finally able to see who it was that was waiting for them down there. Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo stood near the top of the spiraling ramp as they spoke to a short figure. Roxas stopped. “I guess we weren’t the first ones here.”

At the sound of his voice, two large round ears twitched ever so slightly. “Roxas, Xion, Lea! Gosh, it’s good to see ya!”

“You too, Your Majesty,” Xion said with a slight bow of her head.

King Mickey smiled back, then gestured up at the three apprentices. “Aeleus was telling me what happened. Things were kind of frantic when I got the call, so I hurried over without having the full picture.”

The guard nodded. “As soon as I informed Master Ansem I returned here to see if anything had changed. Sadly it hasn’t; there’s still no sign of Demyx, and the Keyhole continues to glow unnaturally bright.”

“Could you catch us up too, then?” Lea asked. “I’m not entirely sure what this world’s Keyhole is even doing down here. Wasn’t it in the Grand Hall way upstairs?”

“I’d rather wait until everyone is gathered before explaining.”

Right, Aeleus was a man of few words. Lea shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“Until then… Roxas and Xion.” The two of them looked up at a pair of piercing green eyes as Even examined them from head to toe. Roxas took a careful step forward, subtly putting himself between Xion and Even. The scientist rolled his eyes. “Oh, relax. I am simply curious about your state.”

“Our ‘state’?” Roxas asked with a suspicious eyebrow raised.

“Yes. How are your bodies holding up? Anything odd, any pain?” Roxas and Xion glanced awkwardly at each other, and Even sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s just a regular medical checkup, albeit an impromptu one. I simply want to know how the replica vessels are working. Naminé was here the other day for the same thing.”

“Oh. Um…” Roxas rubbed the back of his head. “I mean, I feel fine, I guess? Everything is just normal. I don’t even remember that this is a replica body most of the time.”

Even nodded to himself. “Good, that’s good. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. Anything to make it as comfortable and natural as possible. And you, Xion?”

Xion rubbed her arm and looked away. It was kind of a touchy subject for her, given her history, but there was another awkwardness keeping her from meeting Even’s gaze. “Uh, yeah. Same as Roxas, really.”

“I see. And are you…” Even paused and crossed his arms. He had an expression that looked completely out of place on him: embarrassment. “Are you eating well, then? Three square meals a day, and not just ice cream? ”

“Y-Yeah. Yes.” Neither of them were looking at each other.

“Sleeping well? How about your studies? I understand you are on break from school right now, but a sound mind–“

Lea stepped up and put a hand on Xion’s shoulder. “Xion’s doing great, _Dad_. You don’t need to worry, Isa and I are taking care of her and Roxas.”

Even cleared his throat and adjusted his ascot before turning away swiftly – too swiftly. “Good. See that you do. That’s all for the checkup.”

As Even walked a little ways away, Mickey let out a chuckle while Ienzo gave the researcher a half-smirk. Roxas turned around to look at Xion, who let out a breath. “It’s always weird speaking to him,” she said, but there was the faintest of smiles on her face. “Even more when it’s in person instead of over the phone.”

Lea spoke quietly so only those two could hear. “Who knew that getting his heart back would turn him into a concerned parent? I guess watching over Ienzo years ago left an impact.”

Roxas glanced over at Even, who was now speaking to the King again. “Guy still gives me the creeps, but I guess I can’t hate him for what he’s done for us… And for caring about Xion.”

Then, a ding from the elevator. Four figures stepped out, led by Dilan who stopped at the top of the small staircase and held his hand out as a sign for the rest to continue down. The shortest of the three ran forward with a smile on his face. “Hey there, Lea!”

“Heya, Ven.” Lea met Ven with a high-five, then Ven turned to Roxas and Xion.

“How are you two doing?”

“As well as we can be,” Roxas said.

Xion stretched to look behind Ven, scanning for something she didn’t see. “Chirithy didn’t come?”

“Chirithy’s sleeping. We left a note saying where we’d gone, though. Terra was halfway out the door just from the world ‘trouble’.” Ven looked over at Terra and Aqua, and while Aqua was speaking to the apprentices Terra had seemingly made a point of standing a little ways apart from them. He kept nervously glancing between the apprentices and the ramp leading down into the earth, though. “I think Terra still blames himself for all of this,” Ven admitted.

The King clapped his hand together to grab their attention. “Well, looks like everyone’s here!”

Aqua stopped in the middle of whatever she was talking to Ienzo about and turned around. Her gaze flickered over to the elevator before looking to the King. “Mickey, Riku and Kairi haven’t arrived yet.”

“They won’t be coming.” King Mickey held his arms out and gestured at the room. “Donald and Goofy aren’t here either, right? The four of ‘em already headed out a few days ago. They’re off to go find Sora.”

Lea grinned wildly. “With those two goofballs watching over them, how can Riku and Kairi fail? Sora will be home in time for dinner. In the meantime though, I think seven Keyblade wielders here is enough to handle whatever’s going on with the Keyhole. And speaking of Keyholes…”

Lea turned to Aeleus, who cleared his throat. “Alright then. With everyone here, allow me to explain what exactly the Chamber of Repose is.

“As some of you may be aware, there was a Keyhole – the Final Keyhole – within this castle not very long ago. That was not our world’s proper Keyhole, though. It was merely a way for Xehanort’s Heartless to open the Door to Darkness with the seven pure lights.” Aeleus looked around at the silent Keyblade wielders. The ones who weren’t around at the time had previously been told about what had occurred then, so it wasn’t news to them. He lingered on Terra, who met his gaze and then slowly gestured for Aeleus to continue.

“If you have read the reports that Xehanort wrote during his time here, then you know that he found our world’s real Keyhole in the depths of the castle while we were conducting our…experiments.” Aeleus had to stop and take a deep breath at that last part. With a sympathetic look, Ienzo continued for him.

“Eventually our laboratory was sealed off and experiments halted by order of Master Ansem. And rightfully so, though we were upset by it at the time. But once Xehanort banished Master Ansem into the realm of darkness, the first thing he did was undo the seal and modify the room where the Keyhole was. Originally it was actually a cave, a part of the Cavern of Remembrance that still exists beneath the castle. But we turned it into an extension of our laboratory, and then Xehanort added a large throne and Aqua’s Keyblade and armor – though at the time we didn’t know what they were.”

Lea cleared his throat. “Okay, that was a lot to take in and I wasn’t an apprentice for most of it, so let’s see if I’ve got this memorized. Long story short, the Keyhole is down in that chamber where Xemnas would hang out for hours at a time and talk to Aqua’s abandoned armor?”

“Putting it simply, yes.”

“Gotcha. So, what’s the deal with Demyx?”

Aeleus crossed his arms. “It was supposed to be standard guard duty. Demyx has been staying at the Bastion, and he has to earn his keep. We were keeping an eye on the Chamber in case any Heartless tried to approach the Keyhole. He was sleeping on the job, but it was a slow day anyway. I looked away for a few minutes to make a call about dinner plans, and when I came back Demyx was gone. So I checked inside the Chamber. But there was no sign of him in there, and the Keyhole was glowing.”

“And that’s where we’re at,” Ienzo concluded.

The King hummed in thought while shutting his eyes and crossing his arms. “I sure can’t think of anything that would make a Keyhole glow when there’s no Keyblade around. The question is what happened first: did Demyx trigger this, or did it make Demyx disappear?”

“Either way, our immediate concern should be the Keyhole.” It was a new voice that spoke. From the elevator came an older man with his arms crossed behind him. Ansem the Wise. Trailing behind the lord of Radiant Garden was someone unfamiliar though: a boy in a purple lab coat with long white hair tied into a braid, who looked around Roxas and Xion’s age.

“Master Ansem, your meeting with Mr. Leonhart–“

“Tell him it can wait, Alphinaud. This is more important.” Once he came to a stop at the bottom of the small staircase Ansem looked at each of the Keyblade wielders, lingering especially on Terra and Roxas. For his part, Roxas shot him a glare in return. He knew Ansem was sorry, and that he’d made up for it, but just like Riku it was hard for Roxas to move on from this man’s role in taking everything from him. “I am pleased to see all of you made it here quickly. After Aeleus alerted me I put off everything I had scheduled for today. If something is happening to the Keyhole, then as ruler of Radiant Garden it is my duty to see that it is taken care of. I owe the people of this city that much at least.” After a pause, Ansem gestured to the large ramp before them that led into the darkness. “Now come! We have little time to waste.”

The apprentices, including that Alphinaud boy, stayed behind in the Heartless Manufactory, but Ansem walked at the front of the group of Keyblade wielders as they descended into the Bastion’s lowest point. It was awkward going; no one said a word and it felt like they were walking forever, just constantly moving down and down in a spiral. Eventually it did end though, and at the bottom was another door that opened into a brightly lit hall, a stark contrast to the darkness they had just been in.

“Don’t look at the walls,” Lea quietly warned Roxas and Xion as the group entered into the hall.

Well that just sparked their curiosity, and Lea should have known better. The floor and walls were comprised of the same dark blue tiles, but every now and then the tiles were broken up by white doors along the walls. Doors with their windows barred and chains keeping them locked tight. Xion stopped in her place so quickly that Roxas bumped into her from behind.

“Are those… _prison cells_?” The two looked over to Lea, who kept walking. But his hands were clenched tightly, and his face was pointed forward so starkly that he had to be deliberately keeping himself from looking at the cells.

Aqua, Terra, and Ven came up from behind Roxas and Xion and kept walking. Aqua looked back over her shoulder and the two of them without breaking her stride. “Just keep your eyes forward. Don’t dwell on it.”

Right. Those three must have seen all of this before when they came to get Aqua’s armor. And Terra had some vague memories of it from his time with Xehanort. Roxas and Xion reached for each other’s hands and continued forward one step at a time, toward the white doors at the far end of the hall where Ansem stood. As they approached Roxas could feel something on the other side of that door tugging at his heart, and Oathkeeper flashed into his grip without him calling on it. Around him the others’ Keyblades all materialized too.

“I have not been here in person myself,” Ansem admitted.

Terra slowly stepped up beside to the old man. “Let me. It was designed to only open for me anyway.”

Ansem stepped aside, and Terra moved directly in front of the doors. There was no sign of any machine recognizing him, no beep or whirring, but something must have done so because he only stood there for a second before the doors slid open for him whereas for Ansem they had not. And immediately, the eight gathered there were almost blinded.

A searing bright light illuminated the entirety of the Chamber of Repose and much of the hall behind them, pouring forth from something on the far wall of the Chamber. Xion had to both squint and look between her fingers to even begin to take in the Chamber’s appearance. A small circular room, Nobody emblems emblazoned on the walls, chain markings leading from those emblems to the center where a throne sat. It would probably have been grey and dim were the light of the Keyhole not shining so brightly. It was like staring directly at the sun, if the sun was a blinding blue color.

Lea turned away from the entrance and held his hand up to the side of his face to block the light. “How the hell did Aeleus even check the place when it’s like this?”

“Maybe it’s gotten brighter since then?” Ven offered while squeezing his eyes shut.

“Well then we better find a light switch, because–“

As one, everybody’s Keyblades flashed brightly. In response to the seven keys, the Keyhole, too, flashed even brighter…and then began to fade away. Slowly but surely they were all able to open their eyes and look into the Chamber of Repose, and though the light never outright vanished, it wasn’t nearly as overwhelming. The silhouette of the Keyhole on the wall in the center of the glow was now visible.

Lea held up Flame Liberator. “Well. Guess that’s our switch.”

Roxas was the first one to slowly enter the Chamber of Repose, and with his first step forward he willed Oblivion into his hand to match Oathkeeper. He didn’t have any experience with Keyholes outside of those dreams of Sora’s memories, but he knew that this Keyhole looked odd. Its bright blue and white glow was accompanied by what appeared to be sparkles or shimmering stars, like he was staring into space itself. A ring of light pulsed outward from the Keyhole every few seconds. Xion stepped up beside soon after with her hands clutched so tightly around the Kingdom Key that her knuckles were turning white.

“Guys, how are you moving?”

“Huh?” Roxas turned around, where Lea and the others were still standing in the doorway. “What do you mean, Axel?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Lea chuckled in bewilderment and clutched the side of his head. “Something’s wrong. I can’t take a single step into there. My legs work fine,” and he showed this by moving backward a few feet, “but something just won’t let me in.”

Xion and Roxas glanced at each other in confusion. “Did a wall go up after the two of us entered?”

Aqua looked curiously at the two of them. “There’s no wall. It’s just that our bodies won’t let us in there.”

“Yeah, I feel like, scared,” Ven said. “Like my heart is being…rejected by something, and it’s keeping me outside. Terra, any ideas?”

Terra shook his head. “This definitely isn’t something that Xehanort implemented. It’s got to be related to that light. But then why can Roxas and Xion enter…?”

Ansem stroked his beard with concern evident in his furrowed brow. “This is certainly strange, and I have a theory, but we do have someone inside at least. Roxas, Xion, see what you can do with the Keyhole and then we’ll see if we can enter.”

“Okay…”

“And be careful!” Lea added.

Roxas and Xion moved as one around to the other side of the throne, facing the glowing Keyhole with an unobstructed view. They raised their Keyblades and the weapons reacted, light gathering on the tips as the two of them both remembered Sora doing so many times before. But the beam of light they were expecting that would lock the Keyhole never came. Roxas cried out in pain, the grips of his Keyblades burning his hands. Oathkeeper, Oblivion, and the Kingdom Key all clattered to the floor, and then Roxas and Xion only saw white. The room spun around them, they heard voices calling their names, but the voices were so very, very far away. And then the floor vanished beneath them, and they were weightless.

**x-x-x**

The first sense to return to her was touch. She was cold. So, so cold; cold like she was at the bottom of the ocean. The coldness spurred her on, and slowly – _slowly_ – Xion woke up. She wasn’t sure at first if her eyes were open or not; or if they were, if she had gone blind. It took several long minutes – or were they merely brief seconds? – as her mind caught up to her body that Xion realized her eyes worked fine. She was simply surrounded by absolute darkness.

Lying on the cold dark floor, Xion slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked around. What was this place? She breathed into her hands and then rubbed her bare arms for warmth. So cold. But it wasn’t the realm of darkness. There wasn’t the power of darkness permeating this place, just…literal darkness. No light to show her where she was. …No, that wasn’t entirely true. There was a very, _very_ distant point of light high, high up. Impossibly high up. It looked like a slightly larger than average star. But that was all there was. What was this place?

“Roxas?” Xion’s voice called out to no answer save her own echo. Was Roxas unconscious like she had been, or was he not even here? He had been beside her whenever it was that happened, happened. So he had to be here, right? That feeling of weightlessness, that sensation of falling. Falling, falling, falling. But where had she fallen to? Xion’s heart felt heavy and half-asleep, like she had felt while she was a part of Sora.

Xion spotted something. Some _one_. A figure lying on the floor in the darkness some distance away. Not that she could make out the floor, everything was just black. But it had to be Roxas, right? Slowly Xion climbed to her feet. Her legs wobbled, but she found her footing and began jogging over to the unconscious figure with no sound but her echoing footsteps.

“Roxas!” Xion dropped to her knees beside the unconscious young man. He was face down, and he had dirty blond hair, but he wasn’t Roxas. He was wearing a simple t-shirt and gym shorts, not Roxas’s familiar outfit. And besides, his hairstyle was all wrong. Who was this person? Xion slowly and carefully rolled him over.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Demyx…”

The missing Nobody lay motionless with his head in her lap. What was Demyx doing here? He must have fallen to wherever this place was, and the Keyhole in Radiant Garden had to be the door that had led them here. But how? Demyx was a goof but he also would never do anything dangerous. He wouldn’t have approached the Keyhole of his own free will, would he?

Questions for later. With one missing person found, she had to find the other. Xion looked around into the darkness one more time, but to no success. She couldn’t make out Roxas anywhere; if he was here, he was far enough that the darkness hid him from her. Xion’s shoulders drooped and she stared down at her hands. “Where are we…?”

Suddenly, a flash of light came from beneath her and Demyx. Xion gasped and looked down as a ring of light expanded outward from their position. A fluttering of wings, and Xion looked up as doves flew out in a circular formation from the ever-expanding light. As the darkness faded away, the space within the ring revealed itself to be a massive floor comprised of stained-glass with a lovingly crafted and detailed image upon it. She finally knew where she was, and once again Xion felt like the world had been pulled out from under her.

The Station of Awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the process of writing the opening for this chapter, I did an analysis/comparison of Radiant Garden’s layout between KH2 and BBS. You can find the post on my Tumblr, here: https://regiss-tides.tumblr.com/post/183595877443/i-never-looked-at-these-images-side-by-side


	6. What the Stars Tell Us

"ROXAS! XION!"

Lea stared into the Chamber of Repose in horror, wide-eyed and feeling lightheaded from the fear. Gone! They were gone all over again! Where had they just vanished off to?! Ven and the King were grabbing him by his clothes and pulling him back, but they didn't need to. No matter how much Lea desperately,  _desperately_  wanted to barge into the Chamber then and there, the light still pouring out of the Keyhole continued to shove his heart away and keep his feet firmly planted outside the door.

"Lea, calm yourself!" Ansem the Wise's harsh tone got Ven and King Mickey to release their grips and Lea stumbled forward as a result, but he was still unable to will himself to move beyond the doorway.

"Calm myself?!" Lea span around and spat the words at Radiant Garden's ruler. "My best friends are gone, old man! They've vanished all over again! And you of all people are not in  _any_  position to tell me not to worry about them disappearing!"

"Did I say not to worry?" Ansem responded with an icy chill in his voice as he directed a glare reminiscent of his time as DiZ back at Lea. "No, I told you to calm down. Calm yourself, breathe, and think. That is what I expect of someone who was an apprentice at my Bastion."

Lea scoffed. "Please. You were already gone by that point."

"And how should that matter? You apprenticed here with or without me, and moreover, you are a Keyblade wielder and know the ways of the heart. So I repeat again, Lea: breathe and think. If something had truly happened to Roxas and Xion, then you would feel it. You know in your heart that you would."

Lea said nothing, but his tensed up muscles did relax slightly. He stared down at his hands.

After a few moments, King Mickey spoke up. "So what do you think did happen to them, Ansem?"

Ansem shook his head. "I wish I knew. I would wager that they were taken somewhere, presumably to the same place as Demyx, but beyond that I haven't the faintest idea."

**x-x-x**

Okay, calm down.

Breathe.

Think.

The Station of Awakening. A Dive to the Heart. There was no mistaking where Xion had found herself, there was no mistaking the large stained glass pillar. She had dived here herself once, long ago in her dreams, shortly after she had first learned about the Replica Program. But this Station of Awakening and that Station of Awakening were definitely not the same place. Slowly Xion lowered the unconscious Demyx from his position with his head resting in her lap, and then stood up to examine the image on the floor.

The question was, whose Station of Awakening was this? From what Xion had seen and what other Keyblade wielders had told her of their own experiences, the image on the floor of a Dive to the Heart was supposed to be of the person whose heart have been dived into. Her first instinct was it must have been Demyx's; however, there was no sign of Demyx anywhere on the floor's detailed imagery. In fact not a single person could be found anywhere in the artwork.

What Xion saw instead was an image of a castle divided in two right down the middle, with the left side shrouded in darkness and the right side bathed in light. The left half of the castle sat on cold blue stone, while the right half was surrounded by vibrant flowers of many different colors. Circles that repeated around the edges of the pillar contained the Heartless emblem and a completed heart, swapping between the two with every other circle. Obviously it depicted the duality of Radiant Garden and Hollow Bastion, but with no identifying figure the question remained:

"Whose heart is this?"

"Xion!"

Xion whirled around to see Roxas running toward her from the far edge of the station. "Roxas! Thank goodness! Where were you? I called out into the darkness but you didn't answer me."

Roxas caught up to her and paused to catch his breath. "Sorry, I just woke up a moment ago. Where are we?" His eyes wandered down to her feet, or specifically to the person at her feet, and he flinched back in shock. "Is that Demyx?!"

Xion looked down at him, still as unconscious as ever. "Yeah. I guess he must have come here the same way as us. Although… I don't know why Demyx would approach the Keyhole if it was glowing. He'd never go somewhere dangerous if he could help it."

As Xion spoke, Roxas crouched down to examine him. He was no doctor of course, but it didn't take a doctor to know how to check a pulse and temperature. Roxas's frown deepened as he pressed the back of his hand against Demyx's forehead. "He's alive, at least. But it's weird that he's been in here longer than us and is still unconscious, while we woke up faster."

"Yeah… Maybe it has something to do with us having Keyblades?"

"Or maybe it's because this isn't our first Dive to the Heart. Or some third option." Roxas gently opened up Demyx's eyelid with his fingers, then jumped to his feet with a shocked expression. "His eyes aren't gold!"

" _What_?" Xion was so surprised by that that for a moment she was sure her heart had stopped beating. Quickly, she dropped down her knees and repeated Roxas's motions, opening Demyx's eye. Of course Demyx didn't respond, and she hadn't expected him to, but Roxas was right. Instead of gold, his iris was blue-green just as she remembered from the old Organization. The other eye was the same too. She stared up at Roxas, absolutely bewildered. "But how? Roxas, why isn't he a vessel anymore?!"

With his eyes locked on Demyx, Roxas shook his head. "I have no idea. I mean it's a good thing, absolutely! It means every last bit of Xehanort is gone, right? But  _how_?"

"Do you think it was the light, maybe?" Xion climbed up to her feet once more. "Like if it consumed him and brought him here like it did us, did it purge Xehanort's heart from him too?"

Roxas looked like someone had just slapped him. "The light! The Keyhole!"

Xion stared. "Did you seriously forget?"

"I just woke up, gimme a break!"

"I guess you always are like a zombie first thing in the morning." Roxas and Xion both laughed at her joke, but it was hollow laughter. Both had a million questions and no answers. Where were they, what was wrong with Radiant Garden's Keyhole, and why hadn't the others been able to approach the Keyhole?

And first on both their minds: How did they get out of here?

"I had to fight a Twilight Thorn to wake up before," Roxas offered.

"A Darkside for me." But both looked around – there was no sign of anything, be it Heartless or Nobody. The Station of Awakening was still as empty now as it was when Xion had woken up, just the two of them and Demyx. Everything was exactly the same as it had been, and – wait. "Roxas, look."

Xion pointed upward, and Roxas's eyes followed. Up above them, high, high up, what should have been the empty blackness of a normal Dive to the Heart was anything but. Thousands of glittering stars looked down on them, bright and vibrant. There were so many, and all so crystal clear. It was as if they were standing in a vast empty field in the countryside with no light pollution around for miles.

"It's beautiful," Xion breathed. She was transfixed, mesmerized by the sight.

But why were they here? There had never been anything like this in any Dive to the Heart that either of them had seen or heard about before.

Roxas had to snap his fingers in front of Xion's face to pull her attention away from the stars. When she finally turned to him, he examined the artwork on the floor. "This station keeps getting weirder and weirder. Stars where there never were before, no way to identify whose heart we're in, no Heartless or Nobodies. It almost makes me question if we really are in a Dive. If we are, I don't think it's a  _person's_  heart."

Xion smiled gently as she watched him pace back and forth. "I hear a theory coming on."

Roxas stopped pacing, crossed his arms, and looked up at the stars again. "Well, we  _were_ at Radiant Garden's Keyhole…"

_criACK_

A sound like cracking glass echoed throughout the Station of Awakening and drowned out all other thoughts from the pair's heads. Knowing what they were about to see but not wanting to see it, Roxas and Xion slowly and nervously turned in the direction of the sound. Sure enough, there was a large fracture in the middle of the station's floor, right across the castle's Great Crest. And that wasn't all: light was leaking out of the crack, accompanied by sparkles reminiscent of the stars up above. It was just like the light that had been coming out of the Keyhole.

That wasn't good.

_crack_

Roxas and Xion took a nervous step back as another part of the Station of Awakening cracked open and more light began to leak out. More and more the beautiful artwork was breaking apart as cracks formed in the stained glass all around them. Roxas hurriedly knelt down and picked up Demyx, awkwardly holding the unconscious man with his arm around Roxas's neck.

"What do we do?" There was a nervous edge in his voice that Xion hadn't heard since their Organization days.

Xion clutched at her chest tightly and frantically shook her head. The cracks were spreading, the light was growing brighter, and they were rapidly running out of room to stand. "I've never seen anything like this!"

Light not only from below, but from above as well. The stars flashed brightly, and Xion was worried they were about to be sandwiched between two walls of light. But no: the starlight died down to normal levels after only a moment, but that flash was enough to call her attention skyward. Directly above the center of the station a number of stars were swirling around each other, moving in a spiral like a miniature galaxy. Slowly (too slowly for Xion's liking, as she stepped away from another crack) the cluster of stars formed into a shape, a sparkling outline of something familiar.

"Roxas, a Keyhole!" It hung in the sky some distance above their heads, but it was unmistakable.

"Think it will help at all?"

Xion's Keyblade was already in her hand. "Can't make things worse."

"I've got Demyx, then. You get that Keyhole!"

"Right!"

As Roxas held tightly onto Demyx, Xion took off across the Station of Awakening to reach the Keyhole that waited high up above, glowing a pale gold. Her boots left hollow footsteps on glass that echoed all around them, accompanied by the hum of the light that was welling up from underneath. She leapt over a growing crack, felt the warmth of the light against her bare legs, and then stuck the landing on the other side and quickly turned upward. The Keyhole was directly above. Xion gripped the Kingdom Key tightly and pointed it forward as light gathered on the tip. She directed it toward the Keyhole–

The floor gave out beneath her.

Xion's brief scream of terror mixed with Roxas calling her name. The section of glass upon which she had stood had gone askew, flipping at an awkward angle and sending Xion through the air. Beneath her she saw the mass of light that had been growing beneath the Station of Awakening, now unobstructed with the cracks having come together to form a large hole in the center of the station. Whatever was about to happen, it would happen soon.

Xion crashed onto the floor, felt her arms rub up against broken glass. A Cure could heal that later. She fumbled for her Keyblade, which had landed a few feet away. After a moment it flashed back into her hand. This section of the floor gave out too, and Xion jumped away as fragments of glass fell into the abyss of light. Her Keyblade was still aglow and ready to aim at the Keyhole, but its glow paled in comparison to that brightness coming up from below.

"Xion, hurry!" Roxas's voice called out to her, and Xion glanced over to see him backed up against the edge of the platform, the glass collapsing all around him. The ground beneath her own feet shook and Xion jumped before it gave way. In midair she spun around so she was facing the sky, held her Keyblade up, and locked her eyes on the Keyhole.

The beam of light fired.

It pierced the Keyhole high up above at the same time that Xion crashed into one of the last few fragments of glass that still hung above the abyss of light. Prone on the floor, Xion stared up as a shattering sound rang out across this Dive to the Heart. The sky itself seemed to break like glass as the area around the Keyhole fragmented open, a golden circle and orange and blue pattern surrounding the glowing Keyhole. The stars in the black sky shined brightly and started raining down, becoming a meteor shower all around Keyhole glowed brightly, even brighter than the light that was welling up beneath their feet, and its light expanded downward. For the second time that day, Xion and Roxas were consumed by light and felt weightless…

…And then crashed into the floor of the Chamber of Repose.

The three of them lay in a pile in front of the throne, with Roxas and Xion face-down against the cold metal floor and Demyx sprawled across them. With a grunt Xion pushed herself up off the ground and awkwardly tried to get into a sitting position while pushing Demyx off her without hurting him; he was still unconscious. It took some work, but when they finally settled with Demyx lying on the floor, Roxas climbed up to his feet then held a hand out to help Xion up. Only once she was on her feet again did Xion realize that the Chamber was dim and grey. The oppressive light was gone, and the Keyhole was nothing but a faint outline on the wall.

"Roxas! Xion!" Xion saw only a blur of black and red as Lea collided with the two kids and grabbed them into a tight group hug. "Don't you ever do that again! What happened?!"

Xion spoke with strain. "A-Axel, I can't breathe."

When he finally loosened his bear hug on them, Xion took a deep breath and looked over as the others all entered the room. Terra hurried to Demyx's side and picked him up gently while Ansem examined him.

"Where were you?" Lea repeated.

"A Dive to the Heart. I have no idea beyond that." Roxas turned from Lea to Ansem and Terra. "Demyx's eyes…"

Ansem glanced at Roxas, then wordlessly pried open Demyx's eyelids. "My word! Did you find him like this?"

"Yeah. No clue what happened to him."

"Or what happened to  _us_ ," Xion added. "Why were we the only ones who got sucked in there? Why could only we approach the Keyhole?"

King Mickey scratched his head. "Well whatever ya did in there, it at least caused the Keyhole to settle down."

Ansem nodded at Terra, acknowledging that Demyx was fine, then turned to the group. "I have a theory, but it is only that. If we take it as true that Demyx, Xion, and Roxas were the only ones who could enter that Dive to the Heart, then the question becomes what do the three of them have in common?"

"Former Organization?" Ven offered.

Ansem shook his head. "Lea and arguably Terra fit that bill as well, but they were rejected by the light the same as the rest of us. No, what these three have in common is something else."

Roxas frowned and locked eyes with Ansem. "You mean that we're Nobodies."

Ansem met Roxas's gaze for a long, quiet moment before replying. "Yes. Or so it would seem; I say again that this is a theory. But with the information we have now, it would appear that only a Nobody could engage with the light from the Keyhole."

"But why is that?" Roxas demanded with a step forward. If there was one thing he didn't like hearing, it was Ansem talking about Nobodies.

Lea reached out to Roxas. "Hey, Ansem didn't mean anything by that."

But Roxas ignored Lea and took another step. "What makes us so special?" Worried he was about to lash out against the sage-king, Xion grabbed his arm. Roxas glanced back at her, but relented. His shoulders slumped and he said nothing more.

Near the door, Aqua had rested her elbow in one hand while her other hand cupped her chin. "Questions and more questions. We still don't know what that light was, or what triggered it. And now we have to wonder why, apparently, only Nobodies can approach it. I don't know where to find the answers, but there's someone who might know something."

The King perked up. "You mean Master Yen Sid!"

"Yes."

Lea ran a hand through his hair. "I guess it's not like we have any other leads. Roxas, Xion, are you two up for another pit stop before we head home?"

Xion spoke before Roxas. "Absolutely. We have to figure out what's going on."

Terra's arms shifted as he moved Demyx into a more comfortable position. "Then I'll take Demyx upstairs to rest. And after that we'll all go to Master Yen Sid's tower."

Roxas silently glowered, but Xion once more grabbed him by the arm. Ansem hadn't meant anything negative by bringing up Nobodies, and she hoped Roxas knew that. "Come on, Roxas. If it's true that only Nobodies can go to that weird Station of Awakening, then we especially need to learn all we can."

"…I guess," Roxas relented. Then he grimaced. "But does this mean we need to grab our black coats again?"

**x-x-x**

The Mysterious Tower was an odd world. Composed of a small floating island and the namesake tower, it was never in the same place twice. It drifted on the currents of the Ocean Between, directed by the whim of its master. Sometimes it was near Twilight Town, other times by Disney Castle. This time it was all by its lonesome among that sea of stars, floating near an asteroid belt but otherwise in the middle of nowhere.

Master Yen Sid leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard with a frown. Once more he found seven Keyblade wielders had gathered in his tower. If there was ever a sign that something had gone wrong, that was it.

"And that's the whole story," King Mickey said, finishing his summary of the events at Radiant Garden. To the King's sides stood Xion and Roxas, as the focuses of his story. Lea was behind Roxas, and Terra, Aqua, and Ven were behind Xion and the King. Roxas was visibly uncomfortable in his black coat, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other every minute or so and absentmindedly toying with the zipper. Xion stood with her Gummiphone's camera pointed at Yen Sid and Tron on the screen. He had called when they arrived, wanting to be part of the conversation.

Yen Sid rested his hands on his knees and sat up straight. "From what you have told me, it would appear that what occurred in Radiant Garden was the phenomenon known as the Flood of Light."

A low murmur swept through those assembled. Most eyes turned to Terra, Aqua, and Ven, having easily the most experience with ancient legends and matters of the Keyblade between the three of them. And Terra and Ven in turn looked to Aqua, but she sadly shook her head. "I've never heard of that before."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Yen Sid nodded at Aqua's words. "I would expect not. To the best of my knowledge, it has never happened before. Perhaps there is a point of reference for you all to understand, however." With a gentle wave of his hand, Yen Sid conjured a circular image of the Keyblade Graveyard on the top of his desk, its edges concealed by swirling smoke.

"At the end of the ancient Keyblade War, the connected World was swallowed by the darkness that the war brought about, plunging everything into shadow." The facsimile of the Graveyard collapsed inward, the smoke expanding in a clockwise motion to swallow it whole. Slowly the smoke gave way to an image of many worlds dotting the Ocean Between. One by one, the miniature worlds turned black and then vanished. "And just under two years ago, shadows poured forth in the form of the Heartless seeking out the many worlds' hearts. As with the Keyblade War, much of existence lost to the darkness. Do you see what these two incidents have in common?"

"We'd have to be blind not to," Lea said with his arms crossed.

Yen Sid nodded and the image on his desk vanished. "Darkness consuming the World and bringing about destruction; if we were to give a name to this phenomena, the Flood of Darkness would be an apt description."

Slowly, the points started to be connected in the minds of those assembled. Terra was the one to put it into words, his voice heavy with worry. "Then this Flood of Light…?"

Yen Sid's expression was grim as he confirmed Terra's unfinished question. "If there exists a Flood of Darkness, then it only makes sense that it would have a counterpart."

"But how?!" Ven shouted. He quickly moved his way between Xion and the King, right up to Yen Sid to speak to the old master directly. "How can the light be dangerous? I don't get it."

Yen Sid stroked his beard once again. "We must drink water to live, but too much and we will drown. The sun gives us warmth and sight, but it can also scorch and blind us. Do not mistake this incident as the light being cruel or malicious, for it is just as warm and kind as you have all known it to be during your journeys. But in all things there must be moderation."

The King frowned and reached a hand out imploringly. "But Master, if the light's not actin' against us exactly, then what  _is_  causing this flood?"

"Have you ever wound a spring so tightly that, once it is released, it jumps up with enough force to hit you?" Yen Sid asked the group.

Lea laughed and pointed just below his eye. "Had a nasty cut for a while as a kid because of just that."

For the first time since the meeting began, Tron spoke up from Xion's Gummiphone. "It's basic physics. If you put enough force on something, that force is going to build and build and has to release eventually."

"In this case it applies to the metaphysical as much as the physical," Yen Sid explained. "Following your clash at the Keyblade Graveyard, when Master Xehanort successfully obtained the χ-blade, Kingdom Hearts was inundated with darkness as part of his plan to purge the World."

A shudder passed through the room. All of them remembered that sight, seeing purple and black crawling across Kingdom Hearts like an infection. The dark fireballs raining down like meteors, the shift in the atmosphere, the very air they breathed, as Xehanort was one step away from accomplishing his decades-long goal.

Yen Sid continued. "Make no mistake: that was prevented. We are not facing a purge of creation the way Xehanort intended. But that spread of darkness cornered the light, it put too much pressure on it. And now the light is releasing that pressure and pushing back, but in doing so it is overcompensating. Light will pour forth from the hearts of the worlds and out of their Keyholes until the entire world is put to slumber. That is the Flood of Light: a tide of starlight, washing the worlds away."

"Put to slumber…" The King jumped up and slammed his hands on Yen Sid's desk. "The Sleeping Worlds?"

"Indeed. Unlike the darkness which entered a world's heart and destroyed it, the light which emerges from the heart will plunge the world into the realm of sleep. Still, though it may not be as destructive as the Heartless, the Flood of Light can cause plenty of damage in its own way. Make no mistake about that."

Xion gasped. "Then, what you're saying is the Dive to the Heart we entered–"

"Was the heart of Radiant Garden itself, yes."

Roxas and Xion glanced at each other as this information dawned on them. It certainly explained the imagery on the platform, at least. Hopefully by stopping the Flood of Light in Radiant Garden the Station of Awakening had been restored, too. But wow… To enter the heart of a world itself. Incredible.

"But if that's the case, why could only Demyx, Xion, and I enter it? Or even approach the Keyhole?" asked Roxas. "Is there something strange about Radiant Garden?"

"It is not an aspect of the world's heart, but an aspect of the Flood of Light. Those who dwell in the light, as most of us here do, cannot interact with it. As Mickey's report said, you all felt your hearts being rejected by the light pouring forth from the Keyhole. Initially it is too weak to do so; that is how Dilan could investigate the Chamber of Repose. But as it grows stronger, the Flood of Light rejects those who dwell in the light, and burns those who dwell in the dark. Only Nobodies, as beings that exist in the in-between, can properly approach a flooded Keyhole at its full strength."

Xion's fingers tightened on her phone. "Then the only ones who can properly combat the Flood of Light…"

Yen Sid finished for her. "…would be someone who is both a Nobody and wields a Keyblade, yes. Roxas and Xion, you two are the World's only hope in this crisis."

Wow. Okay, no pressure. Xion suddenly felt like this entire tower was resting on her shoulders. She looked over to Roxas, whose fist was clenched tightly. She knew that, while he didn't have fond memories of being one, he didn't exactly let being a Nobody bother him these days. He'd fully embraced his connection to Sora. No, that wasn't Roxas's issue. She could guess what it was, though. He just didn't want Ansem the Wise to be proven right about something.

Roxas finally spoke, slowly. "One last question, then. About Demyx. He's still unconscious."

"Yes, and I would wager that's the result of Xehanort being purged from his body so forcefully. It could be a while before the pain subsides and he awakens. Xion's first instinct was correct: the Flood of Light was what cleansed him of that fragment of darkness." Then, Yen Sid's fingers tightly gripped his robes and he frowned deeply. "But Demyx would have no way of knowing that. He would never have chosen to dive into the Flood of Light of his own volition."

Xion sighed. "I suppose we'll need to wait for him to wake up before we have any answers about what happened." Still, it was good to know that the last piece of Xehanort was well and truly gone.

"I'll be sure to contact you when he does awaken!" Tron chimed in. "And whenever else you need help, too. Roxas, Xion, I'm ready to aid the two of you on your journey!"

Xion flipped her phone around and smiled at the man on the screen. "Thanks, Tron. You're sweet."

Roxas moved into the camera's view so Tron could see him too. "Yeah, you could really come in handy."

Not everyone was on board with this, though. Lea planted his hands down on both kids and leaned down so his face was between the two of theirs. "Whoa, wait. Hold up. What journey are we talking about here?"

Roxas grabbed Lea's hand as the older man ruffled his hair. "You heard Master Yen Sid, Axel. Only Xion and I can stop the Flood of Light."

"Well, sure, but… I just got you two back!"

Xion giggled. "You're sweet too, Axel, but we'll be fine. Besides, you saw how frozen up you were back there. If that happens again, you'd kind of be in our way."

"And your form with a Keyblade is kind of poor too," Roxas said with a laugh.

"Hey!" But Lea relented and pat the kids' heads one more time before he stood up straight. "All right. I don't like it, but all right. You two go gallivanting off on your own adventure, leaving me behind to watch over Isa all by my lonesome."

Roxas rested his hand on his hip. "Just make sure you take him out for walks."

Behind the trio, Aqua spoke up. "I know it's hard, Lea, but they can more than handle themselves. And there's not much else the rest of us can do anyway."

Lea rubbed the back of his head. "…Yeah. Good luck out there, kiddos. We're rooting for you."

Terra cleared his throat. "Well, there's not much we may be able to do as far as the Flood of Light is concerned, but there's something else I can do."

"Huh?" Ven turned around to his older friend.

"What do you mean, Terra?" Aqua added.

"I'm gonna head to Radiant Garden instead of back home. Ienzo told me about some of Xehanort's data that was stolen, and I might be able to help him and Tron figure out what exactly it was. You know, put some good use to the bad memories floating around my head."

"I'd be happy to have your help, Terra!" Tron chimed in from the Gummiphone.

However, Ven looked almost heartbroken. "But…"

Terra put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Ven. I'll be just a short flight on your Glider away."

"Ah, yes. Speaking of which." After this series of conversations, Yen Sid once more called everyone's attention to himself. "Roxas, I could not help but notice how uncomfortable you are in that coat of yours." Roxas's face turned red and he quickly let go of the zipper which he was still messing with. "Not that I can blame you, given your history. I suggest you and Xion leave your coats behind here."

"How are we supposed to get around the Lanes Between without them, though?" Xion asked. Not that she wasn't grateful for the suggestion. Wearing them didn't bother her as much as it did Roxas, but to never see those coats again was an option she'd be happy to take.

"For today, you can use my train to return to Twilight Town."

"Train?" Lea, Xion, and Roxas all asked at the same time.

The King held up a finger. "I'll show ya to it on our way out, don't worry!"

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "Okay, but for the future?"

"I will contact the three good fairies, who created the darkness-blocking garments that several of our friends currently wear. I am sure they will be happy to supply the two of you with some as well. On the morrow, return to the train station in Twilight Town and the first step of your journey will begin."

Xion smiled with her hands behind her back. "Great! Then I guess our first stop will be Enchanted Dominion." She and Roxas bowed deeply and spoke in unison. "Thank you, Master."

With a gentle smile, Master Yen Sid stood up and waved his hand forward. "Go forth, chosen wielders of the Keyblade! May your hearts be your guiding keys."


	7. The Night Before

That night found two pajama-clad teenagers sitting on a bed together. Roxas plopped down on his sheets with a small white box between his crossed legs, something that looked like it came right out of the Castle That Never Was. And it had, in fact; the box was all he had taken with him when he left Organization XIII. Across from Roxas, Xion watched with her arms wrapped around her knees as he fiddled with the lock shaped like a Nobody emblem.

"It's sooo complex. Do you need a Keyblade?" Xion asked with a wry grin.

Roxas laughed. "Shut up."

Roxas's problem with the darn thing lasted about a minute more, but eventually the lock clicked and Roxas pumped a fist in the air. Xion rolled her eyes and gave him a golf clap, but Roxas took it in stride anyway and bowed. "Thank you, thank you."

Roxas set down the key on his bedside table and then slowly opened the box with its front turned toward Xion. She lowered her legs and peered inside. Her eyes widened slightly. "Oh wow. You weren't kidding when you said you had a bunch of keychains."

"Yeah, some of them I bought from the Moogle, and others I picked up in worlds I had missions in."

After a moment of peering at the collection of keychains, Xion titled her head and reached into the box. "What's this?"

What she pulled out wasn't one of the nearly two dozen keychains, though. Held between Xion's thumb and index finger was a little blue ball that seemed to be made of glass or crystal. She peered at it searchingly, then held it up to the window for a moment before frowning at the night sky and turning to hold it up to Roxas's lamp instead. Roxas didn't need to see through her eyes to know what she was looking at as the light filtered through the ball.

He held his hand out. "Xion, can I?"

Xion turned her head back to him and placed the ball in his hand. "What is it?" she repeated.

A bittersweet, nostalgic smile found itself on Roxas's face as he held the ball up to the lamp. After staring into the light dancing within the blue crystal, he curled his fingers around the ball and brought his hand into his lap. "A memento." As Roxas spoke, he absentmindedly rolled the ball from hand to hand. "Hayner, Pence, and Olette gave it to me in the other Twilight Town. It's from when I won the Struggle tournament."

"Oh…" Xion's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry if I brought up some bad memories."

But Roxas shook his head. "Don't worry about it. It's one more treasure for us to share." A short laugh. "You know, I actually lost it, like, right after I got it. Riku stole it from me when he was working with DiZ, and then I think Sora held onto it for a while. But Riku gave it back to me during that beach party."

"I'm glad you have something to hold onto from then." At Xion's words, Roxas glanced back up at her to see her soft smile. He returned the smile and nodded.

"Yeah, same here. Now, what do you say we get started?" Roxas tilted the box and let the keychains spill out onto the bed between him and Xion. Twenty-two was more than plenty for Xion to choose from. They had come together tonight to find a new Keyblade for her to use on their journey; she had said she didn't feel right using the Kingdom Key, since it was meant for Sora. And well, Roxas had all of these just laying around. While Xion examined the little tokens, Roxas set the crystal ball inside the box and put the box on the table.

Xion shifted her legs beneath her and leaned forward to investigate the pile of tokens. She ran her hands through them, pushing some aside and picking others up to examine more closely. She held a pink one up and dangled it from her pinky finger by its little hoop. "What's this one called?"

Roxas had to think for a moment because he had a couple of pink keychains. Sora was lucky, all of his keychains were very distinct from each other. But the name came to him eventually. "Pain of Solitude."

The corners of Xion's lips quirked up in a sort of half-smile at the name, but she didn't say anything. She leaned over and started searching again. A moment later she sat back up straight while holding a black and white token up. "What's its name?"

"Uhh…" If he had a few pink keychains, he had  _so many_  black and white ones. It took Roxas a good thirty seconds to go through the options. "True Light's Flight." Xion couldn't hide a short laugh at that. Indignant, Roxas swiped the keychain from her hand. "Hey! I didn't name them! They just sort of came to me." If anything she should be laughing at Terra, Aqua, and Ven all having a Keyblade called  _Sweetstack_.

"Sorry." There was still laughter behind Xion's reply. "Sorry. Okay, how about this one?" She held up one more keychain with three pink crystals set inside it.

Once again it took Roxas a short bit to recall the name. "Sign of Innocence, I think."

"Well let's give it a look." Xion sat up straight and held her hand out. Light danced at her fingertips, and then with a flash of light the Kingdom Key was in her grip. Xion set the Keyblade down in her lap and unhooked the Lucky Emblem-shaped token from the end of its chain, then attached Sign of Innocence's. Another flash of light, and the Keyblade had transformed.

Most of the Keyblade was a color somewhere between dark blue and black, decorated with several pink gemstones similar to the ones on the keychain. The grip was white, and a similarly white circle accented the cross-shaped teeth of the weapon. Xion slowly and experimentally swung it through the air. "It feels pretty good. I think I'll use this one!"

"Glad to hear it. It boosted my magic when I used it, so that's perfect for you too." Roxas picked up the box once again and began putting the pile of keychains back inside. Kingdom Key's went in, too. A flash of light in the corner of his vision told him Xion had dismissed Sign of Innocence, but he hadn't expected what happened next. Xion tackled into him, knocking the box out of his hands (good thing he'd closed the lid).

She hugged him tightly from the side. "Roxas, thank you."

"U-Uh…" Her arms were around his arm. She pulled him tighter and Roxas felt heat creep up his cheeks. Their position pressed her chest against his arm, and Roxas awkwardly averted his gaze; both so she couldn't see him blushing, and so he didn't accidentally glance down at the shirt of her pajamas with the top button undone. "No problem."

Xion did eventually pull away. Whether she had noticed Roxas's uncomfortable position, or whether she had even been doing it on purpose or accidentally, Roxas wasn't sure. She twined her fingers together in her lap. "It's just, like I said, it felt really weird to be using a Keyblade meant for Sora. Like I was overstepping my bounds. Especially with him…gone."

"Yeah, I get that." He didn't let it show much, but Sora being gone bothered him too. They were still two sides of the same coin, after all.

"And, well, anyway," Xion looked aside. Was she blushing now, or was that a trick of the light? It was hard to tell, she was basically silhouetted against his lamp. "Using one of your keychains makes it kind of like you're always with me?"

With his throat suddenly feeling very dry, Roxas coughed and looked out his window, desperate for a change in subject. "So, um, you ready for tomorrow?"

"A little anxious, actually," Xion admitted with a nervous giggle.

"Me too. We had missions in the Organization, but we never went on a long journey like this. And if even half of what Master Yen Sid is true, so much is depending on us…"

"Then there's Xehanort's stolen data, and however that's related," Xion mused. "But I'm sure we can handle all of it! After all, Sora did this three times over."

The two shared some light laughter at that. "You're absolute right," Roxas agreed. "And if a dork like him could do it, so can we." He glanced at his clock. "Though we may want to get at least some sleep in before then."

Xion looked over at his clock too, then her shoulders slumped slightly. She rubbed her arm. "Oh… Yeah, I guess so."

"You gonna be okay?" That night he heard her crying out in her sleep was still fresh in his mind.

"I'll be fine." She didn't sound so sure, though. Xion hopped off the bed and made her way over to the door. She paused and looked back over her shoulder. Her bright blue eyes caught the reflection of his lamp. "Good night, Roxas."

Roxas picked up the box of keychains and gave her a small wave. "Sweet dreams, Xion."

**x-x-x**

The way Lea saw it, there was one downside to living in Twilight Town: light pollution. They sat around and watched the sunset a bunch, but whenever he wanted to watch the stars there wasn't really an ideal spot since the city's lights always drowned the night sky out. And sure, that wasn't new for him; both Radiant Garden and the World That Never Was always had their lights on at night too. But Axel's missions in the Organization had led to him experiencing some really wonderful night skies on more rural worlds, and sometimes Lea missed that. Though as he sat on the roof of their apartment building, Lea had to admit that seeing the lit streets and buildings from above was a pretty good replacement for a star-filled sky.

The door to the stairwell opened behind him, but Lea didn't turn to face it. He did listen to the footsteps cross over to him, though. "How has that not rotted away yet?" Isa asked.

Lea looked down at the 'that' in question, an old ice cream stick that hung loosely between his fingers. It was hard to tell in this lighting, but the word 'WINNER' was written on the slightly splintered wood.

"I've got experience handling things with care," Lea replied, almost indignant.

Isa sat down next to him. "Experience keeping litter around in an envelope, you mean."

"It's not litter!" Lea turned to Isa and waved the stick above his head as he spoke. "It's…a memento!"

"Relax, you know I'm just messing with you." Isa propped one knee up and the two turned their attention back to Twilight Town. The clock tower especially looked rather beautiful, with the way the clock faces were lit up. After a few minutes of silence, the type of silence that comes with familiarity between two old friends, Isa spoke up again. "So, you're worried."

It was a statement of fact, not a question. And Lea was kind of glad for that if he was being honest; he didn't have it in him tonight to try and save face, and least not in front of Isa.

"How can I not be?" Lea's shoulders slumped and he glanced down at the ice cream stick. "I only just got them back, and now they're heading off to who-knows-where, and I can't even do anything to help."

"You gave them the okay at Yen Sid's, didn't you?" Lea wasn't looking at Isa, but he could practically  _hear_  the raised eyebrow.

"Forgive me for being nervous anyway."

"Of course you're nervous – you're human. Even I feel a little trepidation at the thought of Roxas and Xion going out into the worlds alone. But," and now Isa turned to Lea, and Lea to Isa. "They've more than proven themselves capable. For whatever wrongs we may have inflicted upon them in the Organization, if one good thing came out of it it's that they learned how to handle themselves. You can't babysit them forever, Lea."

"Yeah… Yeah, I know. I know I'm just being overprotective. But…" Lea ran his thumb along the 'WINNER' on the stick's surface. "Well, how about this: one stays home. Why does it have to be both of them? If only Nobodies can deal with this Flood of Light thing, then why's Xion have to risk herself too?"

"Would you rather Roxas do this all on his own?" Isa asked coolly.

"I… You know that's not what I meant."

But he had voiced the question, and now Isa was going to give him an answer even if he didn't want it. "Replicas are a type of Nobody, I know you read Vexen's reports on the project back in the Organization. That's why the Flood doesn't affect her."

"…Just let me want them to stay safe, man. Even just one." Lea didn't play favorites or anything, far from it. But it'd be a load off his mind, if only a little bit, if one of them was safe at home. Or would it? Now that he thought about it, one of those kids being all on their own instead of both of them out there watching each other's backs would probably be worse for his stress, not better.

"I already told you it's perfectly fine. I even said I'm a bit nervous as well. Weren't you listening?"

Lea smirked and shoved his hand into Isa's shoulder. "Sorry, your condescending speech kind of blends together after a while."

Isa returned the smirk, if not the shove. "Then how about this: Embrace your concerns, but don't dwell on them. Especially not at the station tomorrow."

"What's that about?" Lea watched Isa carefully, but Isa was once again watching the streets below them instead of looking at him. "Hey, you in there?"

After a few moments, Isa pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. "I'm sure Roxas and Xion are having a conversation along these same lines right about now." He turned to look at his fiery friend. "They look up to you, Lea. You're their authority figure, far more than I am. How do you think they would feel if they see you freaking out about this, when they're sure to have concerns of their own and telling themselves it will be fine?"

"That's…" Well it wouldn't help them, that's for sure. Yeah, Lea had to admit that. "You're totally right, Isa. They'd freak; it'd be like I was proving their worst fears right. I've got to keep it together for their sake, don't I?"

Isa nodded. "Roxas and Xion are your best friends. It's only natural to be worried, to be scared, about them going off on their own. And they're kids: they're sure to be scared too. So, Lea." Lea looked over to Isa, whose green eyes were all but drilling into his own. "Embrace that fear. It's how you know you're human. But don't wallow in it. I know you're worried, and you can be worried. It's good and right that you are. But put on a brave face for them tomorrow." He tapped the side of his head. "Got it memorized?"

Lea snorted a laugh, looked down at the WINNER stick, and allowed himself a small smile. "Yeah, I do."

**x-x-x**

Roxas and Xion both weren't used to waking up very early, but today was a special case to put it lightly. The sun hadn't even fully risen yet when they sat in the kitchen of their apartment with a pretty impressive breakfast prepared by Lea. And despite Roxas's skepticism,  _no_  Isa did  _not_  help him cook, thank you very much. While Roxas practically inhaled his meal, Xion took a bit longer. She spent half the time just staring at her plate.

"You okay, Xion?" Lea asked her when she finally did finish. "I didn't think my cooking was  _that_  bad."

Xion quickly shook her head. "No, that's not it! I just didn't sleep well last night, that's all."

"Nerves?"

"Yeah… I'm sure it was that." Xion looked down again, not noticing Roxas watching her with concern.

The matter was dropped with that, and after cleaning up Roxas, Xion, Isa, and Lea all made their way to the train station together. Twilight Town didn't seem to want to wake up any more than the kids did; the streets were largely empty except for the occasional jogger or something, and most shops wouldn't open for a couple more hours. The trains ran throughout the night though, so getting into the station wouldn't be a problem.

When they finished climbing Market Street and reached the Station Plaza, Roxas came to a stop and looked out over the town as the sky gradually grew lighter. He felt something wet streak down his face and put his hand up to his cheek to wipe away the tear.

"Roxas?" Xion's voice made him jump. He turned to see her watching him with concern, while Lea and Isa continued up to the station doors unaware. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Not sure where it came from." Roxas rubbed his eyes again and grinned. "Come on, Xion! Let's catch up!" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along in a run toward the doors. But from as she was dragged along behind him, what Xion didn't see was Roxas fight back more tears. He knew full well why; he finally came home, and now he had to leave it all behind once more. Roxas couldn't help but feel like he may not see Twilight Town again.

Just inside the station doors, Isa was already at the teller. "Tickets for two students."

"Not sure why they need tickets for a magic train," Lea mused beside him.

"The people here don't know that," Isa snapped quietly. A moment later the teller handed him the tickets, and he in turn handed them to Xion and Roxas. "I believe we're all set."

The ticket in Roxas's hand felt heavier than any little piece of paper had the right to be. With this he was off to another world, away from home and most of his friends. How would things go? They'd talked about it last night, of course, and it had helped to be sure. But boy, he wished Lea could come along. Even if he did though, he wouldn't be able to help.

"Well, uh, I guess…" Lea cleared his throat and crossed his arms. "Tron's in charge while you're gone, I guess. Be good, and stay safe. Don't stay up too late and eat well. Got it memorized?"

"You sound like Even," Isa said with a half-smile. "They're not toddlers, Lea."

"Lighten up, man! I was just–" Lea was cut off when Xion rammed into him and pulled him into a tight hug.

She craned her neck and looked up with a smile and watering eyes. "See you soon, Axel. Promise you'll call us?"

"…Yeah. I promise." Lea ruffled Xion's hair, and a moment later Roxas collided with him and also joined in on the hug. Lea crouched down and returned it as Isa watched on (and the teller, awkwardly). When they finally pulled away, Lea sniffled. "I'll call every day if I have to. And seriously, guys. Stay safe."

"We will," both of them said together.

Isa placed a hand on their shoulders, and both flinched slightly at his touch, but not nearly as much as they had the first time he'd done so some weeks ago. "We'll be eating ice cream together again in no time."

Roxas and Xion looked at each other and smiled. "Right," Roxas said. "Well then, I guess we'd better get to the train."

"Hey, what about us?"

The station doors shut behind another trio that had entered, the three kids pausing right at the entrance to catch their breath. When he had finished recovering, Hayner shot Roxas a glare and marched right up to him with his arms crossed. "You think you were just gonna leave without saying goodbye?"

"Hayner…"

"Isa told us you were going on an adventure, like the ones Sora used to have," Olette said.

Pence nodded. "We came to see you off. It just seemed like something we oughta do."

Once again Roxas started tearing up. He fought to hold it in, but he was sure he was just making it more obvious in doing so. He actually had the chance to say goodbye to them this time, to do more than just disappear without warning…

Hayner punched Roxas in the shoulder. "Pull it together."

"Right. Sorry." Roxas rubbed his arm across his eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out: the crystal orb. He took Hayner's hand and dropped it into the other boy's palm. "Here. Something to remember me by."

"Uh… What?" Hayner examined the ball with an inquisitive stare, then turned around and held it up to the morning sun through the glass doors. After a few moments he turned to Roxas. "Not sure I get it. And besides dude, you'll be back in no time!" Hayner looked down at the ball as he rolled it between his fingers. "But I guess I'll keep track of your tacky little charm. You know, for a day or two."

Roxas snickered. "Right."

Olette took a couple steps forward and pulled Xion into a surprise hug. "Keep an eye on Roxas. You know how boys can be."

Xion laughed. "Yeah, but you'll have your own hands full with these two."

"I like to think they know not to disobey me," Olette replied with her hands on her hips. "But seriously, good luck."

"We'll hold down the fort here," Pence said. "So go get 'em."

Master Yen Sid's train whistled sharply, telling them it was not going to wait much longer. Roxas glanced back at over his shoulder at the sound. "Xion, I guess that's our cue."

Xion took a deep breath and slapped her cheeks once, then nodded. "Yep. I'm ready."

Roxas turned back to their assembled group of friends, lingering on Lea and Hayner the longest. "We'll be home soon."

Hayner gave Roxas a fist bump. "It's a promise."


	8. Three Good Fairies

Roxas had to admit, the Ocean Between was a heck of a lot nicer to look at than the dark corridors or Lanes. Sitting on his knees and staring out the window of Master Yen Sid's train, he watched as stars, asteroids, and other varieties of space objects streaked by on a backdrop of deep blue. It was a lot prettier to look at than what (admittedly little) he remembered of Sora's first journey. Maybe Sora just hadn't paid close attention, he never was one to exactly stop and smell the roses. A vaguely seashell-shaped constellation grabbed Roxas's attention, and then as they came around the corner of a large rock he caught sight of a sparkling nebula. There were the occasional Heartless flying by too, but with Xehanort and all his derivatives finally gone no one was actively seeking to spread the Heartless anymore and their numbers were significantly fewer.

Xion's giggle pulled his attention away from the window, and he turned around and sat down in his seat to see her speaking on her Gummiphone. Roxas hadn't even known she'd been having a conversation; he must have been more engrossed by the sights outside than he realized.

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," Xion said with a smile on her face. "Roxas isn't the best at computers either, so Sora must be where he gets it from."

"Hey, I'm not as hopeless as he is!" At Roxas's interjection, Xion looked up at him and stuck her tongue out then turned back to her phone. Curious, Roxas scooted over to her and peered down at the screen.

"And Donald wasn't much better, though Goofy surprisingly knew his way around the keyboard– Oh, hello Roxas!" Xion's friend on the other end of the call was Tron, who greeted Roxas with a wave.

"Heya, Tron. How are things over at Radiant Garden?"

"Good! The Keyhole hasn't acted up at all since you left, so thanks again." Tron fiddled with something on the terminal at his end, and Roxas took the opportunity to peer behind him. What a bizarre world Tron lived in: he was inside a neon green room with rectangular panels blinking and sliding all over the walls.

"Oh, is Terra there yet?" Xion asked.

"Yes, Terra arrived last night like he said he would." Tron spoke without looking up from his typing. He paused and looked up at them apologetically for only a moment. "Sorry! While the others are helping Terra settle into his room upstairs, I'm running a scan to find what that stolen data was about."

Xion's brow furrowed in concern. "We can let you go if you need to focus on that."

Tron chuckled and shook his head as he continued to work. "Not at all, don't worry! It's largely automated, but every now and then I do need to check in on it." After a few more keystrokes he finally turned his full attention back to the call. "So, have you arrived yet?"

Roxas glanced back out the window and still saw only stars. "Doesn't look like it."

"Excellent, then that gives us more time to install the application." At Tron's words, two simultaneous dings sounded through the train car. An icon of a giftwrapped present popped up in the middle of the screen of Xion's Gummiphone, and Roxas pulled his own dinging phone out of his pocket to see the same icon on his.

"What's it do?" Xion pressed the icon and the box unwrapped and opened, then Roxas did the same. Tron's video feed on Xion's phone shrank and moved to the corner, then an identical miniaturized Tron appeared on Roxas's phone so he could speak to both of them. With Tron only in the corner, the majority of space on the screen was taken up by this new program.

With a proud smile, Tron crossed his arms and stuck his index finger up. "I developed it myself after analyzing the energy signature of the light from the Keyhole – it can identify worlds where the Flood of Light is emerging. With so many worlds out there we can't expect the two of you to stop by each and every one, so while you're flying around out there your Gummiphone will alert you if somewhere nearby is experiencing the Flood of Light."

Roxas tapped at his screen and an image of the surrounding region of the Ocean Between appeared. "Wow! That's really impressive, Tron!"

Xion agreed. "You programmed this all in one night? Thank you!"

Sheepishly, Tron looked away and scratched at his cheek. "Oh gosh, no need to flatter me. I'm just doing what I can to help. And I can monitor the scanner from here at the DTD, too."

As if on cue the train's whistle blew sharply, and at that exact moment both Gummiphones chimed once again. One world on the map of the area flashed a couple times before their screens zoomed in on it. It was a world with a towering white castle over green forests on one side, and a wicked black castle surrounded by thorns on the other. The name was…

"Enchanted Dominion?" Xion and Roxas glanced at each other. "Isn't that the world we were going to anyway?" Xion asked.

Roxas nodded. "Yeah, to get the new clothes Master Yen Sid arranged for us. That sure is convenient." He looked up at the window as a brilliant light illuminated the outside. In an instant the beautiful sight of the Ocean Between was gone, replaced by a clear blue sky. Roxas and Xion both got up on their knees and turned to watch out the train's windows as they approached this new world.

The train descended swiftly but at a gentle slope as it moved through the sky of Enchanted Dominion. From above, this beautiful world looked like a painting. Trees of various cool shades of green covered the landscape, which itself had many cliffs and hills exposing white rock beneath the grass. Towering above the canopy some distance away was a castle of white spires topped by purple roofs. The castle vanished from sight as the train moved below the canopy and came to a stop floating above a small pond in a grove surrounded by short cliffs. There was a light fog settling near the forest floor, just enough so it was hard to see too far through the trees.

The doors slid open and Roxas and Xion stepped out onto the soft grass. As soon as the train was empty it began to shimmer and fade, and then in a flash of light it vanished, leaving them alone in the forest. "I suppose we'll be able to fly out on our Gliders when we're done anyway," Xion thought out loud.

"If something goes wrong remember that you can call me," Tron said. "I'm always here at the DTD, and it's never a bother."

"You've been a lot of help, Tron. Thanks," Roxas said. With a smile and a wave Tron ended his call. Roxas and Xion pocketed their phones and looked off into the forest. "Well, let's find those fairies, huh?"

Xion took the first step forward. "Yeah, let's go."

Whether by coincidence or design, the train had dropped them off near their destination and Roxas and Xion didn't need to travel far. After only a few minutes of travel the pair emerged into a glen with a thin river streaking through it, at one end of which was a water wheel connected to a cottage. From the open window they could smell something baking, and wow, it smelled good. But was this the place? There was only one way to find out.

Xion knocked on the wooden door of the humble cottage. A few moments passed with no response, but surely the people living here wouldn't leave their window open and food cooking if they weren't going to be home? She knocked again, and this time someone called from inside. "Sorry! I'm terribly sorry, I'm coming!"

A little old lady dressed in red opened the door, and she looked up at Xion and Roxas with a face covered in…what appeared to be icing? She glanced down at herself, made a sound somewhere between agitation and embarrassment, and pulled out a stick that sparkled with pink light. With a simple wave, her clothes and face were immediately cleaned up! Well if that wasn't a sign that they had the right place, then what was?

"Are you one of the good fairies we've heard about?" Xion asked.

"Indeed! And you must be the Keyblade wielders Master Yen Sid told us to expect? Come in, come in!" The old woman grabbed Xion by the hand and pulled her in, with Roxas following closely behind. The interior of the cottage was quaint and cozy, but like the woman had been everything was covered in icing, cake batter, flour, and so on. It looked like their kitchen had exploded.

"That's just Fauna's cooking, dears. Don't mind it, we'll have everything spick and span in a moment!" She waved her wand and launched bolts of pink sparkles at a bucket, mop, and broom which jumped to life and began cleaning up on their own. "We were preparing to greet you after Master Yen Sid sent his message, but we may have lost track of time. We're getting so many visitors lately! Yesterday an old friend drops by, and today you kids!"

As the fairy continued to speak, Roxas awkwardly cleared his throat. He didn't want to be rude, but… "I'm sorry. What was your name, ma'am?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, how terribly rude of me. My name is Flora. And you two are Roxas and Xion, yes?" At their nods of confirmation, she grinned widely and curtseyed. "Welcome to Enchanted Dominion, children. Let me call my sisters and then we'll help you right out." She turned toward the kitchen and called out, "Fauna! Merryweather! Our guests have arrived!"

Two more fairies stepped out of the kitchen, one in green and one in blue and both just as dirty as Flora had been when they met her at the front door. As Flora had done Fauna and Merryweather waved their wands to quickly clean themselves and hurried to greet the kids with smiles on their faces.

"Roxas and Xion, we've heard so much about you," The green one, Fauna said.

Merryweather, the one in blue, spoke bluntly. "You're here for clothes, right?"

"Merryweather, watch your manners!" Flora admonished, and Merryweather huffed. "I apologize for her."

Xion shook her head. "It's okay! I'm sure Master Yen Sid told you, so that is why we're here. We need clothes to block the darkness."

Flora hummed in thought. "Well, I suppose there's time for tea and cake afterward." She clapped her hands and turned to Fauna and Merryweather. "Alright then! Ladies, let's get to work!"

"I'll do the designing!" Fauna held up her wand and pointed it at them. In the next instant Roxas was blinded by a bright burst of green, and as he blinked away the flashing lights and his vision slowly came back to him he found that he was dressed in something entirely new.

…And not very comfortable either.

Roxas tugged awkwardly at the high collar of the suit Fauna had put him in. And what a suit it was: he was all dressed up like he was going to a high society dance at a castle, complete with cape and weird tassel-things on his shoulders. Beside him Xion's face was bright pink as she examined the full on ball gown she now wore, oversized ribbons and opera gloves included.

"Um…" That was all Xion managed to get out before Flora whipped Fauna on the head with her wand.

"Fauna, they can't go adventuring like this! You go work on the cake, Merryweather and I will make their clothes."

"But I–"

Fauna's objections were cut short as Flora grabbed her sister by the shoulders and pushed her into the kitchen. "No no, off you go! You just worry about the cake, dear."

"Well, if you say so, Flora."

While Roxas and Xion stood around awkwardly in their new royal attire, green light flashed awkwardly from inside the kitchen and then Fauna started to speak to her ingredients. A moment later Flora came back out while tapping her wand in her palm. "Now, back to business!"

A flash of pink and the uncomfortable outfits were gone, replaced with their old clothes but now entirely pink as if Xion and Roxas's closets had been dipped in a tub of paint. Xion eyed Roxas up and down and then covered her mouth to hide her laughter.

"Uh– " Roxas began before an agitated Merryweather interrupted.

"You already got away with making Kairi's pink. Blue!" Another flash of light and now the dumbfounded kids stared at each other as their solid pink clothes became solid blue.

"Make it pink!"

Roxas blinked rapidly as once again pink filled his vision. "Hey–"

Merryweather shoved Flora aside. "You can't put a boy in pink, Flora! Make it blue!"

This time the magic only hit Roxas and not Xion, so now he stood in blue while she stood in pink. "We're breaking all the gender norms here today," Xion snarked quietly beside him.

Flora didn't seem to hear that and turned to Merryweather. "Oh you're absolutely right, Merryweather. What was I thinking?" She patted her sister's shoulder and Merryweather nodded with a smug smile on her face. But with Merryweather distracted, Flora pointed her wand at Roxas again. "Make it red."

Merryweather's jaw dropped at the sight, then when she recovered she angrily breathed in through her nose. "Why you… Blue!"

Roxas quickly grabbed Xion and while she yelped in surprise he shoved her in front of him. The magic turned her clothes blue instead of his, to which Merryweather cupped her own chin and leaned forward inquisitively. Beside her Flora scratched the side of her head with her wand.

"How's it going in there?" Fauna leaned out from the kitchen while messily stirring a bowl and splashing cake batter all over the place. Roxas and Xion sent desperate expressions her way, but she only giggled and turned back to the kitchen. "Don't worry, the cake will be ready when you are."

Flora and Merryweather continued to peer at the red Roxas and blue Xion closely, until Flora tapped Merryweather on the shoulder. "How about a compromise?"

"Compromise?" Merryweather raised an eyebrow and Flora leaned in to whisper to her ear. Several seconds passed as Merryweather's expression slowly transitioned from skepticism to surprise, and finally to delight. "Oh, I like that!" Both fairies turned to Roxas and Xion, and their smiles made the two kids step back nervously.

Xion held her hands up protectively. "Hey, don't we get a say in our own clothes?"

Flora smiled sweetly. "You can always change your mind after, but don't worry, I'm sure you'll quite like what we've come up with." She turned to Merryweather and held up her wand. "Together now. One, two… Three!"

With hopefully the last blinding flash they'd see today, Roxas was consumed in red light and Xion in blue. Once again Roxas felt his clothes shift and change on him, but it wasn't to the prince-like outfit from before. When he could finally see, Roxas looked down at his new outfit and slowly nodded in approval. "Hey, not bad."

He was dressed primarily in dark grey, with his boots, jeans, and slightly darker shirt all bordering on black. The hooded and sleeveless jacket he wore over that shirt was a lighter grey, accented with red at the bottom that matched the red inside his popped collar and at the plaid ends of his sleeves. He examined his hands; his left retained his checkerboard wristband and rings, while on his right he wore a dark grey glove similar to Sora and Riku's that was also accented in red. From his belt hung a chain with three charms on it: a thalassa shell, a crown, and a heart.

Xion reached over and tugged at the X-shaped pendant that hung from a thin chain around Roxas's neck, modeled after the zipper on his old clothes. "Matching necklaces," she said with a grin while holding onto an identical one around her neck.

Xion let both pendants go, Roxas's resting against his black shirt and Xion's against her pale yellow tank top, over which she wore a partially zipped up black jacket with purple sleeves. Xion tested her jacket's hood while she examined herself, eyeing the purple and white skirt and light grey leggings with an approving smile. On her right wrist was a black sweatband, and something on her left wrist caught Roxas's eye as it jingled slightly from her movement: a charm bracelet with charms identical to the ones hanging from Roxas's belt, albeit smaller. The necklace wasn't the only accessory they had in common.

"Well dears, what do you think?" Flora asked.

Xion bowed her head. "You worried me with that gown, I have to admit. But I really like these!"

Roxas slightly adjusted the strap of his glove. "Yeah. I'm honestly kind of surprised."

"Part of our magic matches the clothes to your tastes. We appreciate your kind words, but it wasn't entirely our doing," Flora explained. "Now then, as promised, your clothes will protect you from darkness in the Lanes Between; and, heaven forbid you end up there, from the realm of darkness too. They can also change to disguise you in worlds where you might stand out too much!"

"Thanks again," Roxas said. He paused, felt his pockets to confirm his Gummiphone was still in there, and then continued. "We also learned when we got here that the Flood of Light has started up on your world. Do you know where the Keyhole is?"

With frowns suddenly on their faces, Flora and Merryweather spoke in hushed whispers before turning back to the two of them. Merryweather was nervous as she slowly answered. "We do, but it's in a rather dangerous place."

"It would be something of a journey just to reach the Keyhole," Flora added. "So before that the least we can do is–"

An explosion interrupted Flora and shook the house. Instinctively Roxas and Xion summoned their Keyblades and turned to the source of the noise – the kitchen? Wait… Fauna stuck her head out, her green hat on fire. "The cake is ready!" she exclaimed happily.

**x-x-x**

The least the fairies could do before Roxas and Xion made their way to the Keyhole was offer them cake and tea; that was what Flora insisted and she wouldn't take no for an answer. Fauna's cake was… Well it certainly didn't look like something you would serve at Le Grand Bistrot, putting it nicely. It had about a dozen layers, was lopsided and burned in some areas, and at some point Fauna had run out of icing and used whipped cream for the rest. Despite all appearances it was actually really good, though! Roxas was less impressed with the tea, but that was just his taste; Xion was already on her second cup.

Fauna's hands were clasped in front of her while an animated broom carried their dirty dishes away. "My, how lovely! I'm glad you kids enjoyed it. You know, I can never get Merryweather to eat my cooking."

"Because it'll probably kill me," Merryweather said with her mouth full of a store-bought cookie.

Flora wiped at her mouth with a napkin and set it down on her plate for the broom to collect. "Two days in a row with guests. You sure have been busy, haven't you, Fauna?"

Fauna giggled. "I do so enjoy cooking!"

Xion finished her tea and set the cup down gently. "You mentioned this other guest before. Is it anyone we'd know?"

"Oh I'm sure not," Flora said with a shake of her head. "It was an old friend of ours, a young man we raised. He just came by to visit us after a few years away, that's all."

"Oh, that sounds nice."

Flora smiled fondly and leaned back in her chair. "Yes, it was a pleasant visit, but rather short. He picked our brains and had a slice of cake, and then he was off." Then she straightened up and looked to the two Keyblade wielders. "But enough about us. You two have an adventure to get to! You said you were after the Keyhole?"

Finally, time to get moving. Roxas leaned forward. "That's right. And you said earlier you know where it is?"

"Well yes, but…"

"It's very dangerous up there!" Merryweather spat some crumbs out as she spoke.

Fauna waved a dismissive hand. "Oh I'm sure they can handle it! Let's not forget, they are Keyblade wielders."

"The last Keyblade wielder we sent up there charged right into the guards head-first."

Fauna giggled. "Oh Roxas and Xion don't strike me as being as impulsive as Ventus was."

"Ven?" Roxas and Xion exchanged a look. He'd been here before? Xion turned back to the fairies. "Well Roxas and I actually have some stealth training from our old, um, employment. So we could probably avoid any guards… But what is this place, anyway?"

"The Forbidden Mountain," Flora said slowly. There was a weight behind her words even if Roxas and Xion didn't quite understand the reason. "Our world's Keyhole is located in the castle of the evil fairy, Maleficent."

"Maleficent!" Xion gasped, and Roxas's jaw hung open a little. Even if they hadn't ever seen her in the flesh, their hazy memories of Sora's first journey and information they'd heard from the others were more than enough to paint a chilling picture of that witch. "I had no idea this was her home world too."

"It is, though she hasn't been here in years. Not since our world first fell to darkness and she left for Hollow Bastion."

"Then if it's abandoned, why the worry?" Roxas asked.

"It's definitely not abandoned!" Merryweather insisted. "Maleficent left it behind, but her goons are still there all these years later."

Flora nodded. "Yes, and though they're weak on their own they have large numbers."

"Well like Xion said, we know how to move around without being seen." Roxas shrugged. "I'm sure we can handle it if we do get caught, though."

"Yes, I'm sure you can," Flora admitted. "Alright then. Come along." She stood up and motioned for everyone to follow. After a few moments Roxas, Xion, Fauna, and Merryweather joined Flora outside the front door of the little cottage. Flora pointed up above the trees and toward the horizon. "The Forbidden Mountain is that way. You can just barely make it out, see? Though at this distance it will probably be tomorrow by the time you reach it."

It was a bit hard to see through the trees, but if Roxas squinted he could indeed make out the ominous peak that Flora was pointing to. "Should we wait until morning to leave then?"

Xion shook her head. "No, I don't think we should wait. We don't know how quickly the Flood of Light moves."

"In that case, here." Flora waved her wand and in a flurry of pink sparkles two bundles of fabric appeared, one in Xion's hands and one in Roxas's. "Sleeping bags. You'll definitely be camping out in the woods tonight, there's no way around that."

Roxas smiled down at the rolled up fabric. It felt soft enough. "Sounds kind of fun, honestly."

"And don't you worry about returning those to us, dears," Fauna added. "They'll disappear when you're done with them."

Xion bowed her head, and after a moment Roxas mimicked her. "Thank you for all of your help." With a glance at each other, Roxas and Xion waved goodbye to the fairies and started making their way into the woods.

"Oh, once last thing!" Flora called from behind them. Roxas and Xion glanced back over their shoulders. "Keep a wary eye out in those woods, dear. This world is full of fairies, but not all are as friendly as us."

Another glance between the two. Fairies? How much trouble could they be? "We'll keep it in mind," Roxas said. "Thanks again."

**x-x-x**

Roxas and Xion journeyed for some time through the woods, until eventually the sun began to set just as Flora had said it would. By the time darkness had settled on the forests of Enchanted Dominion, they found a small clearing to set up camp in. As Roxas set up their sleeping bags, Xion assembled a ring of stones and pile of sticks then cast a small Fire spell. The soft orange glow of a campfire illuminated their surroundings, at least for a few yards.

"There, that should do it." Roxas stood up straight and looked down at the sleeping bags in approval, one on each side of the fire pit. He sat down across the fire from Xion and chuckled. "Can you believe it? Our first camping trip and we forgot to bring marshmallows."

"Yeah," was Xion's halfhearted reply. Normally she'd probably be just as excited to try out camping as Roxas, but, well… It was night. And with night came sleep, and with sleep came… She curled her fingers together in her lap. "Hey, Roxas."

"Hm?" Roxas had been looking up at the night sky, but he turned his attention back to her.

Xion eyed the sleeping bags on opposite sides of their campground. "Can I…sleep next to you tonight?" Roxas stared, and Xion felt her cheeks heat up. This was stupid, she shouldn't have asked. "Never mi–"

"Of course you can." Without a further word, Roxas stood up and began to move Xion's sleeping bag next to his.

A soft smile found itself on Xion's lips. "Thanks."

"What's the occasion though? Feeling lonely out here?"

"No, that's not it… You remember that night at home, right?"

Roxas paused. After what felt like an eternity, he resumed his work. "Yeah."

"That wasn't a one-time thing. I have those nightmares every night. So I guess… I was just hoping that if you're nearby, um."

Roxas held a hand up and gave her a reassuring smile. Just from that Xion already felt the nervousness that accompanied her every evening melt away. "I kind of figured they were recurring. You don't need to even ask, Xion. If it would help you get a good night's rest, then I'd do anything."

Xion looked down at her fingers, and she was thankful for the firelight hiding her creeping blush. "Thank you, Roxas."

After a makeshift dinner of whatever leftovers the fairies had provided them, Xion put out the fire with a Blizzard spell and the two got into their sleeping bags. Even with the fire out they weren't in pitch blackness, with the stars and full moon bright up above.

Roxas yawned. "Sleep tight, Xion."

Xion watched him quickly fall asleep as soon as he hit the pillow, just like he always did. She smiled and shifted to get more comfortable, then an idea came to her that mad her bury her face in embarrassment as if Roxas could somehow read her mind. Slowly, nervously, she pulled her hand out of the bag and reached downward toward his hand. Even if he were asleep, his fingers grasped hers.

Sure that she wouldn't be having any nightmares like this, Xion shut her eyes. "Good night, Roxas."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roxas and Xion’s new outfits were respectively designed by yenrzzvezdrz and itporl, on Tumblr and Twitter respectively. And used here with the artists’ permission, of course. They’re by far my favorite KH3-style fan designs for the two that I’ve seen.
> 
> Roxas: https://yenrzzvezdrz.tumblr.com/post/180875426323/its-finally-done-dude-drawing-the-poses-was-so 
> 
> Xion: https://twitter.com/itporl/status/1060605333121318913


	9. Through the Fog

The cheerful chirping of birds alerted her to the morning. Xion slowly opened her eyes and blinked the fog of sleep away as her surroundings came into focus around her. It took a moment for her to register where she was, that initial disorientation of waking up somewhere besides your bedroom lingering in her head. But as the weariness of the morning cleared away so too did her memories catch up to her. They were camping in Enchanted Dominion, her and… Wait.

Xion's fingers gripped at thin air; the hand she had fallen asleep holding no longer there. Where was Roxas? Xion pushed herself up into a sitting position, and as she did so some fabric on top of her shifted; besides the sleeping bag from the fairies, that is. Xion glanced down to see something grey and red draped over her like a blanket, and it took several seconds for her to realize it was Roxas's new jacket. Had he left it on her?

As Xion picked up the jacket and climbed to her feet, she found the boy in question sitting on a fallen log near the remains of their fire from last night. Roxas looked up as he heard the crunch of Xion's boots on the grass. "Morning. Sleep well?"

Xion paused. Huh, now that she thought of it? "Yes, actually." She smiled as she handed him his jacket, and as he put it on Xion realized why she felt so refreshed. That was the first good, uninterrupted night's sleep that she'd had since being recompleted. She stared down at her hand, curled her fingers, and held them to her chest. "Thank you for last night, Roxas."

Roxas sputtered and turned away. "Uh, y-yeah, you're welcome. I'm glad it helped." After a moment he looked back at her. "How about some breakfast?"

"Sure," Xion said with a chuckle. Roxas scooted over a bit and she sat down next to him. "By the way, what was the jacket about?"

"Oh, I just didn't want you to get cold. When I woke up the sun hadn't risen all the way yet." Roxas paused. "I didn't go overboard, did I?"

Xion shook her head reassuringly. "No, not at all! It was nice of you."

"Well good, then." Roxas handed her one of the muffins the good fairies had given them before they left. "Don't just shove it down, but we probably should get going soon."

Xion rolled her eyes. " _You're_  telling  _me_  to eat slowly?"

"Hey!"

The little clearing was filled with their laughter and continued morning chatter as they ate their breakfast. It was nothing fancy, but it was filling. When Roxas's laughing caused him to start choking on his muffin Xion quickly cast Water and conjured a clear blue orb for him to drink, but with nothing to hold it in the water eventually grew unstable and exploded all over him. It was a spell initially designed for offense, after all.

Xion had to hide her laughter as Roxas used the only thing really available to him to awkwardly dry off: his sleeping bag. As he put the wet bag down, Xion cast Aero backed by a small flame from Fire, sending hot wind his way. It finished the job, but it also messed his hair up something fierce. Roxas shot her a glare and Xion didn't try to hide her laughter; his hair was lopsided and all pointed left.

When Roxas had finished getting his hair back to its proper messy state, he glanced down at the two sleeping bags. "What do we do with these?"

Xion stood up from the log. "Well Fauna did say they'll disappear when we're done with them. I guess we can just leave them here?"

"Guess so…. Oh, I'm gonna check in on Axel before we go." Roxas reached around to his back pocket, but paused. After a moment he patted his other back pocket, then his side pockets, then he was running his hands up and down the length of his jacket. "No!"

"Roxas?"

"My Gummiphone!" Roxas whirled around and whipped his head back and forth. "Xion, do you see it? Maybe it fell out overnight–"

A screech behind Xion caught both their attention. Roxas and Xion turned to the edge of the clearing, where a short and fuzzy creature stood. It was covered in pitch black fur from head to toe, had two rabbit-like ears taller than the rest of its body, limbs as thin as twigs, two beady yellow eyes and a disproportionately large mouth filled with tiny, sharp teeth. And in its small hands it held the familiar red and yellow device.

"Is that some sort of Heartless?" Xion wondered. She was ready to summon her Keyblade at a moment's notice.

"I don't know, but it has my Gummiphone!" Roxas charged toward it and the creature screech and ran into the trees. Roxas followed it into the woods without hesitation.

"Roxas, wait up!" Xion cried as she sprinted to catch up with him.

The thin fog in the forest from yesterday was still around, which meant they lost sight of the rabbit-thing pretty quickly. That didn't stop Roxas from running in the direction of its screeching cry though, and Xion was right beside him. But as they delved deeper and deeper into the forest, the fog started getting denser and denser. Eventually the rabbit-thing's screeching had died off, and even the sounds of animals around them had halted. When Xion could see no more than a few yards around her, she came to a stop and grabbed Roxas by the wrist.

"What's up?" Roxas asked. Even with him right next to her he was still a bit blurry, like looking through a slightly fogged up window.

Xion conjured a small flame in her open palm before answering. The soft orange glow cleared up her vision of Roxas, but they were still surrounded by a wall of white. "This fog isn't natural."

Roxas looked at their surroundings and let out a quiet but concerned hum. "Maybe it is? We don't really know anything about this world." He didn't sound very certain, though.

Xion frowned at him. "Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather didn't warn us about this, though. They only warned us about–" She was cut off by a roar that shook the trees and seemed to come from every direction at once. Immediately Xion summoned Sign of Innocence and held it ready while continuing to hold the fire up for whatever extension of her field of vision she could get.

"Warned us about other fairies." Roxas finished Xion's thought for her. Oathkeeper and Oblivion were already in his hands as he stood back to back with Xion. "Do you see it?"

"It's hard to see anything in this fog... Wait." Xion squinted her eyes and peered ahead, where part of the fog was beginning to swirl around itself like a slow whirlpool. As it continue to swirl a hole opened in the fog, but it was a jagged hole. The area of fog around the hole started to bulge outward, slowly extending toward them as the hole became a more solid shape, starting to resemble a mouth with razor-sharp teeth.

"Look out!" Quickly, Xion spun halfway around and rammed her shoulder into Roxas's back. Both of them fell to the ground just as a large white dragon shot over them at unexpected speed. They narrowly avoided being devoured by it on the spot. Xion's fireball flew from her hand and pursued the dragon, but when it flew back into the wall of fog the fire continued through the woods until it dissipated, never hitting anything.

Roxas was already back on his feet and looking in every direction. "Where'd it go?!"

Xion cast another Fire spell and held it out as she searched. There was no way they shouldn't have been able to see the silhouette of something that big stalking them in the fog, but it had completely vanished. Where was it? Another roar shook the area and the dragon shot out at them again from somewhere that Xion was absolutely certain it had not been just a moment before. She narrowly avoided its wing swinging at her while Roxas attacked its side. But when his two Keyblades made contact with the dragon, it vanished – dissipated into water particles that merged back with the fog.

Roxas stared at the empty space for a good long moment before he turned to Xion and called out a warning. "It's not hiding in the fog. It  _is_  the fog!"

The dragon roared once more. As if in response to Roxas's warning the fog around Xion swirled and formed together into long and dangerous claws that swiped at her. Xion quickly recalled what she had learned in her dance classes to avoid the attack, and upon recovering she held out her Keyblade and fired a bolt of light at the dragon's underbelly. Like with Roxas's attack, the dragon merged back into the fog rather than take the hit.

Xion watched as it lunged at Roxas, as Roxas dodged and retaliated, and as the dragon vanished again. This wasn't working. The fog always twisted and contorted before the dragon manifested so it was really easy to see where it was about to attack and avoid it, but by that same token the dragon always returned to the fog right before they made contact. They'd have to hit it while it was in the fog if they hoped to do anything, but how? As Roxas had pointed out, it wasn't  _in_  the fog, it  _was_  the fog.

Wait.

If the dragon was the fog, then attacking the fog itself would be like attacking the dragon, right? Though how to do that without harming themselves, when they were practically swimming in the fog? Xion cartwheeled away from the dragon's sweeping tail and over to Roxas. "Can you clear the fog immediately around us?"

She didn't have time to elaborate more than that in the middle of a battle, but she didn't need to. Roxas nodded. "Whatever you got planned, do it."

While holding both Oathkeeper and Oblivion tightly, Roxas simultaneously spun them in his hands and quickly pivoted around on his foot. A thin wave of wind and light shot out in a circle from him, whipping at Xion's jacket and hair while pushing at the fog and creating a circular safe space for a few yards around them. It was small, but it did its job of keeping them out of the fog.

Xion dismissed both her Keyblade and the flame she had been using to light the way. She held both arms out to her sides with her hands wide open. Thorny white bands of nothingness twisted down her arms while she pictured the necessary weapons in her mind's eye. Xion pulled her hands into fists and the nothingness began to coalesce between her fingers, taking the shape of eight yellow and blue knives, four in each hand.

The moment that the replications were completely solid, Xion hurled all but one of Larxene's knives in different directions into the mist. Seven  _thunks_  told her they had all landed on something; whether that was in a tree trunk or on the ground, it didn't matter so long as they were in the mist. Now came the second part of the replication. With the image of the knives still fresh in her mind, Xion raised her arms above her head in a pose she had seen Larxene take before with her wrists crossed over each other. Electricity crackled on the eighth knife still in her hand and a bolt of lightning flashed down from the sky and struck it. Before the thunder was done echoing over the forest, Xion threw the supercharged knife into the fog.

The effect was immediate. Beyond the cloud wall they could see flashes of yellow as lightning jumped from knife to knife to knife, creating eight different points in the fog that crackled with electricity. All eight knives simultaneously released massive shocks, surging lightning all throughout the area. The smell of ozone quickly overwhelmed the forest, but the fog had cleared and the sunlight returned. In the back of her head Xion felt the replicated knives fade back into nothingness.

"Xion, that was brilliant!" Roxas exclaimed.

Xion turned to him with a grin. "Fog is just water, right? Water and electricity don't mix." Though truth be told, she was incredibly thankful it had worked as she expected it to. Though come to think of it, there was one part she'd been expecting that didn't happen. The dragon hadn't roared, not in pain or anger or anything. It was completely silent now.

Though someone did cry out in anger as she thought that, but it definitely was not that dragon. Xion summoned her Keyblade again while Roxas turned toward the voice and held his Keyblades in a combat stance. "Who's there?!"

More fog appeared through the trees, but only in a small area a few feet wide. The fog swirled together once more, forming into a dome of clouds, and then faded away to reveal a girl standing where it had once been – a very young girl at that. She didn't look like her age was even in the double digits. She wore a yellow skirt and grey shirt, but her most eye-catching feature was the bright green hair.

The girl huffed and put her hands on her hips. "Why didn't you run away?!"

Xion and Roxas glanced at each other then back to the girl. "Come again?" Xion asked.

"It's a dragon! You're supposed to run away before it eats you!" She said it so matter-of-factly, like the two of them were idiots for even considering staying to fight it.

Roxas and Xion eased up their battle stances. It looked like the dragon was gone, and a little girl wasn't going to fight them no matter how rude she was. "So why didn't you run away, then?" Roxas asked.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Because it wasn't real, dummy!"

"What?"

She let out a groan and shook her head. More fog appeared behind her and formed into the dragon's head, then let out a roar. "My Mist Dragon is just a trick to keep intruders out. Intruders like you dummies!" She turned toward the dragon head and stroked its chin. With her voice lowered to imitate the dragon's, she said, "'I did good, didn't I, Miss Rydia?'" Giggling she hugged the Mist Dragon. "Yes you did, you good boy!" And with that, the fog dissipated once again.

"Rydia?" Xion asked.

"That's my name!" The girl crossed her arms, trying to look tough. "So who are you guys anyway? Are you humans? I've never seen any humans before."

Wait, what? "Does that mean you're a fairy?" Roxas asked.

Rydia stuck her tongue out and winked. "Nope!"

Again, what?

"Where are you going? Why are you out here?" For someone who was pretty bratty, she sure was asking a lot of questions. Rydia pointed at their Keyblades. "What are those things? How'd you do magic?"

"Slow down there, alright?" From the tone of his voice, Roxas was starting to get irritated.

"Come on! You're the weirdos, so you answer me!"

" _We're_  weird?" Roxas sputtered.

Xion laughed. "I guess to her we are. I mean, she said she's never seen humans before."

"And I've never seen such a little brat before."

Honestly Xion had to agree, and kind of wanted to snap back too. But she also knew Rydia was young, and if she really hadn't seen humans before, probably didn't have much social etiquette. "She's just a little kid, Roxas. And besides, I know a petty big brat myself." Roxas rolled his eyes while Xion held Sign of Innocence up to show Rydia. "These are called Keyblades, they're special magical swords we have. We were going to the Forbidden Mountain so our Keyblades could help with some trouble up there, but–"

A high-pitched screech resounded through the trees. Roxas was immediately on the lookout again. After he whipped his head back and forth, he caught sight of the source: that little black rabbit-thing clutching a familiar red and yellow object tightly in its tiny hands. "That's the thing that stole my Gummiphone!"

The rabbit-thing screeched again and took off running, and Roxas gave chase immediately. "Roxas!" Xion called after him, but he was already vanishing between the trees. With a sigh, Xion turned to Rydia. "That little thing stole something important to us, so we need it back before we can go to the Forbidden Mountain."

"Oh, that's a spriggan!" Rydia said simply. "They collect stuff. They live in caves beneath the woods. I can show you the way!"

"Seriously?"

"Xion!" Roxas ran back toward the two of them and hurriedly motioned over his shoulder. "Aren't you coming?"

Xion pointed over at Rydia. "Rydia says she can lead us to the spriggan's home."

"Spriggan?" Roxas raised his eyebrow and looked down at Rydia. "What's the catch?"

Rydia put her hands on her hips and matched him with a glare, the height difference not bothering her one bit. "You gotta answer all my questions and not be a brat about it!"

Roxas ran his hand down his face and took in a breath. "Okay then. Fair enough." He held a hand out toward the woods. "Lead the way."

With her head held high, Rydia ran in the direction of the spriggan. "Follow me, dummies!"

Xion cast Roxas a sympathetic glance as he cringed. "This girl is going to be the death of me." The two of them started running and Roxas called ahead. "We're coming, Rydia."

**x-x-x**

On a cliff nestled among the foothills of the Forbidden Mountain, two figures in black coats looked out over the forest. The man looked back at his female companion, who was tossing a thumb drive up and down in her hand. She was irritated that they were still here and he was sympathetic to that, but it seemed that his decision to linger in this world a little longer had proven right.

"You saw that lightning strike, didn't you?" he asked over his shoulder.

The woman caught the thumb drive in her fist from midair. She let out an  _ugh_  under her breath and rolled her eyes. "Please. How could I of all people have possibly missed it?"

He chuckled. She was right, of course. Even with everything that had changed about them recently, that much was still true. "It would seem that our little recusants have finally caught on to what's going on. It was only a matter of time until that happened."

"So should we run interference? I'm getting antsy just sitting around here."

"Interfere, yes; but us, no. I would really rather not have them learn who we are just yet." The man snapped his fingers. Several white wisps manifested in response, then spun around and turned into Nobodies. Without looking at them the man pointed out into the forest. "Welcome the Keyblade wielders to this world. Do not let them reach the Keyhole."

The Nobodies gave only slight nods as signs of acknowledgment, and then vanished as quickly as they had arrived. The man turned around and started to walk away.

"Hey." His seated companion grabbed him by the wrist as he walked past her, stopping him mid-step. "Are you really okay with this? The Flood of Light putting this world to sleep, I mean. You said this is your home, didn't you?"

The man frowned. His fingers lightly brushed his chest over his heart. "I would be lying if I said there wasn't guilt and remorse, that much is true. But…"

"But?" There was a tone in her voice that sounded almost foreign coming from her: concern.

The man tugged his wrist out of her grip. He felt her fingers linger on his sleeve before she finally relented and let go. "But any world that I have to live in alone is no home of mine." He continued walking, and after a moment heard her stand up to join him as they moved through a field of flowers toward the Forbidden Mountain. "It will all work out in the end. She'll come back, and the two of us can be together again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the unfamiliar, Rydia comes from Final Fantasy 4 and spriggans are from Final Fantasy 14.


	10. Daughter of the Forest

The further they moved through the woods of Enchanted Dominion, the less familiar the land became. Roxas and Xion were used to temperate forests, not only from Twilight Town's but also from missions to Wonderland's twisted forest or the dark woods around Beast's Castle. This wasn't like any of those, though. Gradually the terrain had become marsh-like as the ground beneath their feet slowly gave way to shallow water. Roxas, Xion, and Rydia pushed tall reeds aside as they moved, the sounds of crunching twigs and leaves beneath their feet replaced with the  _squish_ - _squish_  of mud. Croaking frogs and buzzing flies could be heard in every direction. Beside Roxas Xion swatted a mosquito that had landed on her bare arm.

They had been traveling for some time now. According to Xion's own Gummiphone it was around noon, and Roxas wasn't any less impatient than he had been that morning. It wasn't just because of this area being harder to travel in – Rydia definitely wasn't helping his mood. The girl hadn't let up in either her endless questions or bratty personality. Roxas had wanted to snap at her more than once, but kept biting his tongue; she  _was_  helping them, after all. That didn't make her any less obnoxious, though.

Rydia trotted in front of Roxas and Xion, but facing them and walking backwards. She held her arms out as she balanced on an old, fallen log. "Is it true humans eat ice? What are cities like? Do you live in a castle?" She had been asking questions like that for hours.

"I think you mean ice  _cream,_ they're crowded and loud, and not anymore but we used to." Xion's answers were short and, not that Rydia was socially aware enough to notice, kind of snippy. Roxas could tell she was irritated with Rydia, too; she was just better at hiding it than him.

Rydia's eyes lit up brightly at that last answer. She ran over to Xion and clung to her tightly as they moved through the marsh. "Really?! Do you know a princess? Are  _you_  a princess?!"

"I'm not," Xion said in a strained voice while slowly trying to get Rydia to let go of her skirt. "But I guess technically I do know one." If princesses of heart counted, anyway.

Rydia started bouncing up and down, and practically tugged Xion off her feet with excitement. "Can you introduce me?! Come on, I'm helping you out! Introduce me! Introduce meeeee!"

Roxas had had enough of this kid. "Rydia." She stopped on a dime and shot a glare at him. "Are you sure this is the way that spriggan went?"

Rydia let out an over-the-top groan and crossed her arms. "Yes, I'm sure. The spriggans live in caves in the fairy moors. Which you'd know if you weren't a dummy, dummy."

"Fairy moors?"

Rydia rolled her eyes. "The most enchanted part of Enchanted Dominion!"

Roxas looked out over the reeds and wrinkled his nose at some stench that wafted by. Down by his feet a frog hopped across the muddy pathway. "We're in a marsh, Rydia."

"A marsh on the way to the moors!" She leaned forward and pointed at her ear. "Are you deaf or something?"

Xion put a hand on Rydia's shoulder. "How about you keep leading us, okay?"

Rydia and Roxas shared one last look and then Rydia relented. "Okay, come on." She parted some of the reeds and revealed a branch in the path they'd been walking, then made her way down it with Roxas and Xion following.

Roxas couldn't help but chuckle at the exhaustion that overtook Xion's face as soon as Rydia's back was turn. "A little overwhelmed?"

Xion blew at her bangs. "Is it that obvious? I'm trying to be patient with her but she's really testing me."

"You're handling it better than I am. I can admit she's really ticking me off."

"Yeah, about that. Why are you so irritated today?"

Roxas glanced at Xion, who was watching him with a worried expression. What kind of question was that? "Well on top of an annoying little kid? My Gummiphone was stolen, Xion."

Xion raised an eyebrow. "It's just a phone, Roxas." She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out her own Gummiphone, identical in every way to his. "And I have one too. You know I have no problem helping to get yours back, but what's the big deal?"

Roxas frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. Realistically, Xion was right: what  _was_  the big deal? They didn't need two Gummiphones when one would suffice. And yet he was so angry that he had it taken from him. Why? Why was it such a problem for Roxas to have something of his taken?

…Oh.

"I guess because it was mine," Roxas admitted, as much to himself as to Xion. Her face softened and Roxas continued. "So much of my life has been borrowed from someone else or pushed on me without a choice. Sometimes both. Before I didn't have very much that I could call my own, and what I did was taken from me: you, Axel, Hayner, Pence, and Olette…" Roxas looked ahead to see if Rydia was eavesdropping on them, then turned back to Xion. "When I got everyone back – when I got  _you_  back – I was finally able to make a life of my own, with things and people I  _chose_  to have and be close to."

Xion was silent for a few long moments, with nothing but the sound of their footsteps in the mud. What was she thinking about? Her expression was unreadable. When Roxas was just about to ask her, she finally spoke up.

"So it's not really about the phone itself." Xion grabbed Roxas's wrist and put her Gummiphone in his hand. "Me doing this doesn't solve your problem. It's about what the phone represents."

Roxas hefted the phone in his hand, then returned it to Xion. "Yeah, you worded it better than I could. I guess having something stolen from me hits a little too close to home, even if it's something as silly as my phone, because it's still mine."

Xion's lips quirked up into a gentle smile. "And that's totally understandable, Roxas. Like you said, you've had stuff taken from you before. I get it now; I just needed to hear it." She pocketed her phone and, without missing a beat, hooked her arm around Roxas's. "And if there's one thing you don't ever need to worry about losing, it's me."

Roxas snickered and lightly flicked Xion in the forehead. "Sure thing. I couldn't get rid of you even if I tried."

"Hey!"

From a few yards ahead, Rydia called over to them. "If you two are done making kissy noises at each other, we're here!"

"We're coming, Rydia!" With her arm still hooked in Roxas's Xion ran on ahead, dragging him along. The mud beneath their feet gave way to an old but preserved plank bridge, the shallow brown water grew deeper and clearer, and the reeds that had been surrounding them for the last hour or two vanished to reveal a breathtaking sight.

Bright sunlight danced on the surface of a giant lake surrounded by tree-covered hills and fields of colorful flours. Shimmering waterfalls cascaded down cliffs of white stone. Bizarre creatures of extravagant shapes and colors were all around them; a group of animals that Roxas could only describe as flying manta rays passed overhead, and on the shore of the lake an elephant-like creature that Rydia called a 'shoopuf' blew a jet of water out of its long trunk. It wasn't just animals, either. Pixies, spriggans, and other vaguely humanoid shapes were all over the place chatting and just going about their days. Some eyes the newcomers with curiosity.

Once they reached the end of the bridge and came ashore, Roxas had to pick his jaw up off the ground. "Are these the uh, fairy moors?"

Rydia smiled smugly and nodded. "Yup! And that spriggan den should be right around here–" She paused looked over to the side, at a large figure approaching them from another plank bridge. Rydia smiled and waved. "Oh! Quina!"

The person Rydia had greeted was…quite a sight, to put it lightly. He – she? –  _they_  were large and round, dressed in pink with a white apron and chef's hat on top of that. Their only exposed skin was their face, which was a stark and unblemished white. Their eyes were a red pattern resembling clown makeup, with white pupils. And their most striking feature was the extremely wide grin, from which hung an exaggeratedly long tongue that stretched down to their round belly.

"Rydia!" Somehow they managed to speak even with their tongue hanging out. They looked behind the little girl to Xion and Roxas. "Who they? I can eat?" What?!

Rydia cackled. "No, I think they'd give you indigestion."

"Oh. I eat later then, maybe."

"Yeah, maybe after they've been in the sun for a while or something."

"Raw meat not good."

Well this was an exceedingly uncomfortable conversation, and Roxas wasn't entirely sure if they were joking or not. This Quina person certainly looked like they could eat him if they tried. Xion crouched down beside Rydia. "Rydia, aren't you going to introduce us? Your friend sure has an uh, interesting appearance."

"Huh? What, haven't you ever seen a qu before? Sorry Quina, these two don't seem to know  _anything_."

"Maybe if you'd explain first thing," Roxas grumbled under his breath. Rydia didn't seem to hear him.

"Quina, these are Roxas and Xion. Dummies, this is Quina Quen! They're a qu, and they helped raise me!"

"Raise you?" Xion looked between Rydia and Quina curiously.

Quina nodded excitedly. "Yup! Made lots of yummy foods for Rydia to grow up big and strong like fairy kids!"

"Oh! Speaking of, Quina, where is everyone?"

"They waiting for Rydia by the beach."

"Yay! Okay!" Rydia ran off without a second thought, charging down the shore at top speed toward a small crowd of pixies, gremlins, and spriggans.

"Wait, Rydia! What about Roxas's phone?!" But Xion's call fell on deaf ears as Rydia started playing with those fairy children. She certainly stood out from the group physically, but blended into their play so naturally. Like she'd been with them her whole life.

Roxas groaned and rested a hand on his hip. "What is that girl's deal?" He watched her play for a minute longer, then turned around – and found himself face-to-tongue with Quina. Shocked, he jumped back and had to resist the urge to summon his Keyblades. "Gah! Uh, hi there."

Quina looked between Roxas and Xion. "You two humans? Friends of Rydia?"

"I don't know about friends, but the first part's right," Xion said. "Are we the first humans you've seen?"

Quina stared silently. Their face was completely unreadable, and seemingly like that at all times. Roxas hadn't even seen them blink yet. "Of course not," Quina said after a little while. "Rydia human too."

"Wait, she is?" She had said she wasn't a fairy, but then what were all of her questions for? Xion turned to look at the green-haired girl playing with the fairies in the shallows of the lake. A shoopuf rained water down on them from its trunk. Geeze, she could be an annoying brat of a kid, but right now she seemed like any other little girl having a fun day out with her friends.

Roxas scratched his head. "But didn't she say you raised her?"

Quina shook their head, their tongue swaying back and forth with the motion. "All raised her, communal. Fairies found Rydia seven years ago as baby. But baby no good for eat, so look after her instead."

"Oh, so that's why she didn't know anything about people– or uh, about humans. Cities and stuff, I mean."

"And why she's not very…social," Xion said with a laugh. "Rydia's really spent her whole life here in these moors? But we know some fairies who live like humans do."

"Flora, Fauna, Merryweather?" At Xion's nod, Quina shrugged. "They good fairies, but they also different fairies. Lived as humans to raise human princess, then like it and stay that way. Not like us. Left moors behind."

"Oh… Not the norm, huh?" Roxas scratched his head again then looked up at the horizon, where the Forbidden Mountain was still visible in the distance, albeit further than he'd have liked. They had really gone off-course while pursuing that spriggan. But seeing that mountain did give him another thought. "Then what about Malefi–"

Before the witch's name was even passed his lips Quina cut him off with a loud screech. Some of the other fairies around turned to look at whatever it was that had upset the qu so much. "Not say name!" Quina shouted, launching spittle at Roxas's face as they did so. "Evil witch! Bad fairy!"

Roxas held his hands up to try and calm Quina down. "Okay, okay, I got it. I won't say her name again." He looked around them. Most of the fairies had gone back to their own business, but some still lingered on him with a glare.

"I take it that Ma– Um, that she isn't welcome here?" Xion asked.

"She live here once, long, long time ago." Quina made a noise somewhere between spitting and grunting. "But always wicked and cruel. Kicked her out when I was just little qu. Should have done worse. She ruin this world to darkness."

Oh, an opening to turn the conversation. "Speaking of that. We're actually here to make sure something else doesn't ruin this world." Roxas looked back to Rydia. "Quina, do you think you could get Rydia to come back to us? She was helping us find something of ours that a spriggan stole, and we really need to hurry because we need to stop the thing we came to stop before it's too late."

Once more Quina stared at the two of them silently and emotionlessly for a minute. "Not to hurt Rydia?" Roxas had a feeling that if Quina could squint their eyes, they would be.

Xion nodded. "I promise she'll stay safe with us. She's just going to show us to a spriggan den and then the two of us will be on our way."

"Okay…" Quina turned toward the playing children. "Rydia! Come help dummies!" Roxas winced at Quina calling them by Rydia's favorite name, but beside him Xion couldn't help but let out an exasperated laugh.

"They're still here?" Rydia called back over.

"You promised you'd help us find my Gummiphone, you brat!" Roxas snapped back at her.

"Oh, yeah. Right. That spriggan. Fiiiine, I'm coming!" Rydia waved goodbye to her friends and hurried on over to them. "Quina, I'll be right back!"

"Bring yummy foods this time, Rydia. I hungry." Quina stared at Roxas with saliva dripping down their tongue, and he suppressed a shudder.

Rydia led them across a field of flowers into a forested section of the moors. At the base of an oak tree was a large hole, large enough for them to crouch through. Inside was an angled tunnel running underground into a chamber that Roxas and Xion could just make out from the surface. "This is the spriggan den?"

"Yup! On my honor this is where your weird thingy was taken."

Well, for all her attitude they didn't really have a reason to distrust her. Xion conjured a flame in her open palm and moved into the tunnel first, with Roxas and Rydia close behind. The main chamber of this den was surprisingly well-lit, due to odd gemstones embedded in the walls that gave off a soft glow. A pile of leaves and grass seemed to serve as the resident spriggan's bed, and a pile of treasures and trinkets took up nearly a third of the room. As for the thieving little fairy itself, there was no sign of it; lucky thing, it would get off easy. Their prize was certainly there though. Sitting among the pile of stolen goods was Roxas's Gummiphone. He picked it up with a grin and examined it in the light of the glowing stones. Not a scratch, thankfully. And no missed calls either, not that he was expecting any – if anyone hadn't been able to contact him they'd know to just call Xion, and her phone hadn't rang at all today. Roxas pocketed his phone and stood back up.

"You got your thing, so can I go back to my friends now?" Rydia asked.

Roxas nodded. "Yeah, go ahead. And, uh…thanks, Rydia. You really did help us out."

Sputtering, Rydia crossed her arms and looked away. Was that a blush creeping on her cheeks, or a trick of the dim light? "I-I'll just head out then! Dummy!" She turned around and hurried up the slanted tunnel.

Xion smiled at Roxas as the two of them followed Rydia at a slower pace. "With that detour done, ready to head to the Keyhole?"

"Yeah. Hopefully things didn't get too out of control while we've been messing around."

Xion poked him in the side with a chuckle. "This wouldn't have happened if you kept a better eye on your things."

Roxas laughed and shoved her shoulder. "Maybe next time I'll let you hold my Gummiphone, if you're so organized." Xion's reply was a smug grin as she raised her chin up proudly. But their banter was cut off by a terrified screech from outside, and the two didn't even need to share a look with each other before they summoned their Keyblades and hurried the rest of the way to the exit.

"Rydia, what is it?!" Roxas shouted when he leaped out of the hole in the ground. She didn't answer, but she didn't need to. The green-haired girl was surrounded by swaying silver-white forms. Dusks! What were they doing here? One Dusk noticed Roxas and Xion as soon as they breached the surface, and the others did soon after. Their bodies writhed, and they charged.

A blast of Watera from Xion sent the first Dusk that came at them flying. Roxas knocked two more aside then slashed through the air and sent waves of gold and blue light flying out from his Keyblades. It made quick work of the remaining few Dusks.

"Rydia, get out of here!" Xion called.

Rydia's eyes went wide and she pointed behind the two of them. "Look out!"

Roxas turned around too late to heed her warning and just in time to make out the figure of a Dancer before it kicked him in the face. He felt the warmth of a Cure spell from Xion wash over him before he even hit the ground, and as he climbed back to his feet more Nobodies began to manifest around the three of them. Dancers and Reapers, fitting for this world's aesthetics. Whoever was commanding these Nobodies sure seemed to have a sense of humor.

Roxas leaned back to avoid the slice of a Reaper's scythe while Xion dodged a Dancer's kicks and spins with dancelike motions of her own. Her Keyblade sliced across the feminine Nobody's chest and sent it colliding with the Reaper that had been harrowing Roxas, then Roxas finished the job and pierced both of them through the middle.

Fireballs flew past Roxas's head as Xion cast spell after spell at a pair of Reapers that had wrapped themselves in their defensible bud forms. But that was no match for her flames and they went down without knowing what hit them. Roxas spied a Dancer making its way to Rydia and tossed Oathkeeper its way, then vanished into particles of light. When Oathkeeper made contact with the Nobody the particles recombined into Roxas and he kicked the Dancer aside followed by striking it with both Keyblades at once.

"Xion, behind you!"

Xion took Roxas's words and whirled around just in time to parry another Reaper's attack. She pushed against its scythe with Sign of Innocence and successfully knocked it off balance, then raised her free hand up and cast Thunder. A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and hit the Nobody dead-on, then while it was stunned with sparks coursing over its body Xion charged her Keyblade with a magical aura and drove the edge down into the Nobody's chest.

One Dancer left. Roxas darted toward it and jumped over it before it could kick him, but it grabbed him by the wrist. Roxas was whipped around violently by the Nobody, nearly losing his grip on his Keyblades, when a Blizzard spell struck it in its back. The Nobody released its grip and Roxas was sent tumbling through the air, but he managed to right himself. Spinning both Oathkeeper and Oblivion in front of him, he sent two spiraling bolts of light forward and hit the Dancer dead-on.

With the Nobodies gone, Xion and Roxas stopped to catch their breaths. Roxas looked over to Rydia, who was shaking in place with her eyes wide. "Don't worry, you're safe with us."

Rydia opened her mouth, but no words came out. After swallowing she finally managed to speak in a shaking voice. "W-What were those?"

"They're called Nobodies," Xion said. "A better question is: why are they here?" She dismissed her Keyblade and looked off to the horizon, eyeing the Forbidden Mountain in the distance.

**x-x-x**

There may not have been any humans around as they fought the Nobodies, but that didn't mean the moors were lifeless. He had first seen them shortly after the fog cleared, and thought it odd that humans would be this deep in the forest, so far from the castle. They had been a puzzle worth pursuing, and so he had quietly followed them on their hunt for that spriggan. His mistress had commanded him to watch over this world in her absence, after all. He followed from just out of their sight for the better part of the day, at some points growing bored or uncertain if they were worth it, but reassuring himself by keeping a close eye on the clothes they wore. There was no mistaking those three bumbling fairies' handiwork, and they didn't give out those magical garments to just anyone.

And eventually his patience and perseverance paid off. He couldn't very well follow them into the spriggan's den without being seen, but when they emerged and began battling the white husks… Well, the all too familiar weapons they summoned had proven his suspicions right. Wasting no time, the raven lifted from his perch on the branches above the Keyblade wielders and hurried off toward his home.

As Diablo flew over the forest the trees below him began to thin and the sky above him began to darken. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the derelict castle atop the rocky peak that was his destination: the Forbidden Mountain. Although Maleficent had left Enchanted Dominion long ago, her old base of operations was far from empty. Diablo soared over the crumbling stone of the outer walls then descended on the keep, flying through the open windows of the throne room with a caw that echoed off the walls. He didn't catch any attention despite that echo, though; several of the inhabitants of the castle sat in the center of the large round chamber, unaware of their visitor and playing a game with cards and dice. After perching on an arm of his mistress's throne, Diablo sighed and let out another, louder caw. That time he got the reaction he wanted: the goons jumped to attention, their dice and cards scattering about as they stood up straight and saluted.

"Diablo! Uhh, welcome back!" one of the piglike soldiers said in his buffoonish voice. "Anything to report, sir?"

These goons being so dumb was a double edged sword. On the one hand they didn't have the self-respect to be insulted at Maleficent leaving a raven in charge, but on the other hand they didn't have the tact to do much but stand guard and Diablo often had to handle everything himself. But this was something he couldn't do alone, he was after all only a bird. The goons would have to step up.

Diablo gestured up to the window and cawed again. The goons all turned to look, and as they did so Diablo hopped off the armrest and behind the throne to grab something Maleficent had left behind.

The pig turned back toward Diablo and scratched his head. "Do the windows need cleanin'?"

Diablo groaned and dropped the object from his beak. By all that was evil, they were slow. He took to the air and perched on the windowsill then pointed outward again. Some of the goons muttered amongst themselves while the pig rubbed his chin. Finally, he smiled. "Oh, somethin' in the forest!"

Diablo nodded, and the goons nodded with him, proud of themselves for figuring it out. Diablo returned to his prize behind the throne and slowly pulled them out by his beak: a pair of enchanted manacles, which would nullify any and all magic that the person who wore them attempted to cast. Maleficent had left them behind just in case a Keyblade wielder arrived in her absence, and now the day had finally come.

A gremlin-like goon recognized them first. "Hey, those are the magic chains!" Voices of agreement rose up around him.

Diablo nodded once again and another round of proud smiles lit up the goons' faces; Diablo rolled his eyes. He tossed the manacles out onto the floor of the throne room, in front of the group. They stared at them for a good long while and Diablo was about to caw in irritation, but the piglike one spoke up again. "Hey, we was supposed to use those for Keyblade wielders…"

"Yeah, yeah," said another goon.

"…and if Diablo is givin' 'em to us…"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Then there's a Keyblade wielder in the woods!"

"Yeah, yeah!"

Diablo cawed excitedly and angered cries rose up among the goons. They ran to the far wall where their spears, axes, and bows were resting, and Diablo began circling in the air above them. The pig held up the anti-magic manacles and shook them vigorously, the chain rattling above the uproar. "Don't worry, Diablo! We'll get that Keyblade wielder, we will!"

With the pig at the lead, the goons charged out of the throne room. Diablo perched on the windowsill and watched as they made their way out of the castle entirely, down the Forbidden Mountain and into the woods. He grinned as best as a raven could. Those wielders would make a magnificent prize when Maleficent returned, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The live-action Maleficent was a bad movie but I did like the design of the moors and fairies from it, so I decided to include them in Enchanted Dominion.
> 
> I apologize for the wait on this chapter being longer than previous ones. I had a serious case of writer's block while working on it, and KH3's critical mode coming out didn't help. The last section with Diablo was actually written earlier than anything else here, because I knew how I wanted the chapter to end but not what most of the meat of it would be.


	11. The Forbidden Mountain

"Roxas! Xion! Help!"

"Rydia, hang on!"

Xion grit her teeth as she ran at top speed with Keyblade in hand. Just their luck: as soon as they took care of the Nobodies, something else arrived. They had stopped to take a rest at the moors before continuing on to the Forbidden Mountain and the Keyhole when a small army of  _things_  had come barreling out of the marsh. Xion didn't even know how to describe them. They were short and grotesque, and they had charged straight at Rydia with a pair of odd-looking manacles. Everyone was so surprised by the intrusion that they hadn't even been able to react in time before Rydia's hands were chained up and she was being carried off by the odd goons. Needless to say, Roxas and Xion were immediately in pursuit.

Twin wheels of flame flew through the air in pursuit of the kidnappers: Lea's chakrams, replicated by Xion. They burned down the reeds in their path, creating a scorched pathway through the marsh. While the goons' were slowed down as they had to push their way through the reeds, Roxas and Xion could run along the burnt down path uninterrupted. They caught up to the goons quickly, just in time to see the chakrams make contact. They pierced two goons, but to the kids' surprise the goons  _exploded_  when the weapons hit them. The chakrams' orange flames mixed with a green fire that was released upon the goons' deaths; whatever these creatures were, it was apparent they were magical in nature. But the death of those two goons didn't stop or even slow down the mob as they continued to carry the screaming, struggling Rydia away.

"Get back here!" Roxas tossed Oathkeeper as hard as he could. It sailed over the mob and landed teeth-first in the muddy ground, and then Roxas's body evaporated into particles of light that swiftly moved to the Keyblade where he became corporeal once again. But as he prepared himself to face the oncoming mob, a handful of vulture-like goons at the head of the group shot arrows that glowed black with the power of darkness at Roxas. He deflected some, but a second volley came immediately after that Roxas hadn't been expecting.

Roxas grunted in pain and dismissed Oathkeeper. With his hand free he gripped at his arm where the arrows had pierced him. They must have been made of the same sort of magic fueling the goons because they quickly dissolved into green embers, but the wounds they made stayed behind. And as Roxas dealt with the wounds the mob continued its charge uninterrupted. Just before they would have run into Roxas they made a sharp turn and ran off into the reeds. With a grimace, Roxas pointed Oblivion after their retreating form. His grip shook since it was his injured arm, but he held it as steady as he could and then launched a bolt of blue light off into the reeds in the direction they'd run. A moment passed before he saw a flash of green. Well he got at least one of them, that had to count for something.

"Roxas!" Xion hurried over to him, and in one swift motion dismissed her Keyblade, grabbed his arm, and pulled it toward her. Despite Roxas pulling his arm back she held tight and pulled his sleeve up, revealing the two wounds from the arrows. In addition to the wounds being open and actively bleeding, Roxas's skin was also darker around them as if he had been bruised. Xion took in a sharp breath through her teeth and felt her stomach drop.

"Xion, Rydia is–"

"Quiet!" Xion snapped, and Roxas wisely complied. "Those arrows had some sort of magic on them. Libra." As the words passed her lips magic filled Xion's body and then concentrated in her head. A soft glow lit up her eyes. She examined Roxas's wounds closely, peering at them as the Libra spell worked its magic. "Bind status. If you had tried to chase them you wouldn't have been able to." Xion looked up at Roxas's face as the glow faded from her eyes.

Roxas nodded and pulled his arm away from Xion. "Well okay, then let me–"

Xion grabbed his hand in hers. "Esuna–"

"Xion!" Xion shot him a glare. Why was he cutting her spell short? They didn't have time to mess around! He pulled his hand away again, slower this time, and reached for his pocket. "Stop using up all your magic on me when we still need to save Rydia. I have a panacea to fix this. You go after them before they get away, and I'll catch up."

Embarrassment washed over Xion; she felt her face heating up. "Oh, uh. Right. Hurry up, then." She awkwardly took a step back and called on her Keyblade once more, then turned in the direction the goons had run off and cast Fira, sending out a fireball that burned another path through the reeds. Xion spared one more glance at Roxas as he dug through his pockets, then took off after the mob at top speed.

She finally came to the end of the marsh and broke through a wall of reeds to find herself on a small field where swamp met forest. There up ahead was the mob, holding Rydia, and facing a surprising but familiar sight: a black and purple hole in the world, a dark corridor.

Rydia caught sight of Xion at the grass's edge. "Xion!" Her cry for help caught the attention of more goons, who snorted and snarled at the sight of the black-haired girl. More of the vulture ones parted from the group and took aim with their arrows. Like Roxas had she knocked away several with her Keyblade, but when the second volley just like it had for him she was expecting it. Clearly these goons weren't smart enough to change up their tactics.

If they wanted to play with arrows, then Xion would play their game. "Freeze!" Three Blizzard spells sent three razor-sharp icicles at the archers, piercing them one after another. But even though their comrades perished on the spot, the rest of the goons – about half of their original number now – seemed unphased. They turned away from Xion and began marching off toward the corridor.

Xion's heart raced. "Oh no! Rydia!"

"Xion! Help!" Rydia screeched.

Shadows rose up to swallow Rydia and the goons. Xion dashed at top speed toward them, her hand stretched out. Rydia, too, tried desperately to reach for Xion. But just before Xion reached the corridor one last arrow flew out from the mob. She'd been so focused on reaching Rydia that it caught her by surprise and she wasn't able to dodge or block it. Xion cried out as a sharp pain struck her in the abdomen. Though the arrow faded away its curse didn't. Xion's legs locked up, her feet gave out, and she tumbled face-first into the grass.

"XION!"

"Rydia!" Xion reached out. She climbed to her feet, but her legs felt numb. Her feet wouldn't budge.  _Bind…_  Xion clutched at her shirt and felt magic flow through her. "Esuna!" The status cleared away and she broke into a run once more… but too late. Rydia and the goons vanished into the darkness. "RYDIA!"

"Xion!" Roxas jumped out of the reeds and hurried over to her side with a potion. Xion quickly downed it and felt the pain from the arrow fade away just as its magic had, but that didn't help the pain in her heart.

"Roxas, Rydia!" Xion pointed to where the last remnants of the corridor of darkness were. It vanished just in time for him to see the signature color scheme and know what he was looking at.

Roxas gasped, and for the first time seemed to realize that Rydia and the goons weren't with them. "Damn it!" He slashed his Keyblades across the trunk of a nearby tree, desperate to take his anger out on something.

"She's just a little girl… What do they even want with her?" Xion felt absolutely horrible. She felt like she was going to throw up, it was as if her nightmares were plaguing her all over again. They couldn't go back to the moors like this, that wasn't even a possibility. They let Quina down. And worst of all? "Roxas, I'm pretty sure they worked for Maleficent. I mean, there was green fire and the power of darkness."

Roxas had been slashing at the tree as Xion thought and spoke, but now he finally stopped. He breathed heavily. "…Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. They have to be her goons that the good fairies mentioned."

"Then there's only one place that dark corridor could have gone." Xion looked up, above the tree line and out on the horizon. The Forbidden Mountain, Maleficent's base of operations – and the place they were headed anyway. It seemed fate was giving them a bit of a helping hand.

Roxas held out both his Keyblades. "We need to hurry. I know Aqua warned us about using these in a world because if someone saw them it would disrupt the order, but…"

But Xion shook her head to push aside his concerns. "No, I agree. We need to get their fast. Before something happens."

As one the two tossed their Keyblades into the sky. At the height of the weapons' ascension there was a brilliant flash, and what came back down to them weren't the Keyblades but a pair of vehicles instead. With nothing further said between them, Roxas and Xion quickly climbed aboard their Keyblade Gliders and took off toward the ominous peak in the distance.

**x-x-x**

The dark corridor opened in the dilapidated throne room of the abandoned castle atop the Forbidden Mountain. On the arm of Maleficent's throne, Diablo perked his head up at the sight. The first goon to emerge was their self-styled leader, the piglike one. He saluted Diablo and then stamped the butt of his axe on the floor.

"Diablo, we have returned!" he said in his snorting voice. "We bring the prisoner you asked: a Keyblade wielder for Maleficent!" The goon stepped aside and allowed the rest of them to come out of the corridor. Diablo narrowed his eyes; there was significantly less of them now than when they left. Well, that was to be expected if they had to fight Keyblade wielders. It was a miracle any succeeded at all.

But as the last of the goons emerged from the darkness with their prisoner, Diablo's eyes shot wide open. Those idiots, they couldn't be trusted to do anything! That wasn't either of the Keyblade wielders, it was the fairy child who accompanied them! Diablo let out a loud squawk of disapproval, but curse this language barrier – nothing was getting across to the goons. They just stood there in front of the throne, some awkwardly trying to figure out what Diablo was shouting about and some proud of their 'job well done'. Eventually Diablo let out a groan and slumped forward, his chin wresting on the stone of Maleficent's throne.

"You must be tired from all that bossin' around you've been doin'," the piglike goon said. "We'll go take our prisoner to the dungeons. You get a good rest, Diablo."

The goons marched off with the girl struggling and calling for help all the way. Help… Diablo groaned again. Yes, there was no way the goons could have taken out two Keyblade wielders. They'd assuredly be coming to rescue the girl, and Diablo did not want to be here when they did. He'd better get out while he still can…it's not like anyone would miss those worthless minions anyway. Diablo climbed back to his feet and took off, soaring through the window and far away from the Forbidden Mountain.

And all the while, Diablo was unaware of his visitor: a man in black who had been watching from behind one of the broken pillars that were dotted around the circumference of the room.

The hooded man slipped out from his hiding place and made his way up the crumbling stairs to Maleficent's throne. He approached the extravagant stone seat and pushed with all his might, slowly but surely shoving it out of the way. With one last grunt, he toppled the throne over. It crashed to the ground with a loud  _SMASH_  that echoed around him, and its top half broke off and fell to the lower level of the throne room. But that wasn't his goal; his goal was what was behind the chair.

On the wall that had previously been hidden behind the throne was a familiar shape, a Keyhole. The outline glowed bright blue, and shimmering stars poured forth from the interior. The Flood of Light was well on its way to casting this world into the realm of sleep, and very soon the light pouring forth from the Keyhole would be powerful enough to keep him, someone who was not a Nobody, unable to approach it. But that was fine as long as the flood came to fruition. If everything went according to plan, then the first of the seven necessary worlds would be put to slumber.

**x-x-x**

The Gliders flew close to the rocks as Roxas and Xion ascended Forbidden Mountain, careful to not be seen by any sentries up at Maleficent's castle. Upon reaching the mountain's peak they turned at a ninety degree angle and flew straight up the castle walls, then higher still. The Gliders vanished in midair and Roxas and Xion dropped down onto the battlements. Before they had even landed Roxas's Keyblades were already in his hands.

He didn't wait a second before he was running off to who-knows-where. "Let's go get Rydia."

"Roxas, wait!" Xion grabbed the hood of his jacket, tugging him back. He let out a yelp of surprise and Xion slapped his hand over his mouth. "Sshh!"

When Xion removed her hand, Roxas whispered harshly to her. "What's the big idea?"

"Look before you leap." Xion pointed down into the courtyard below them, where countless numbers of Maleficent's goons patrolled. She moved her hand and pointed to another wall across from them, where even more guards stood. "There's so many of them." Individually they went down easily sure, but with these numbers alerting one would alert all the others and then it'd be a death of a thousand cuts. "This is going to take finesse, not brawn."

Roxas's Keyblades vanished from his grip. "What do you have in mind then?"

"An old standby." Xion pulled her hood over her head and then zipped up her jacket to keep any free-flowing fabric to a minimum. "You still know how to get around unseen, right?" She turned toward him and zipped up his own jacket too.

"Oh, right. Got it." Roxas pulled his hood over his head too. An old standby indeed; as part of their training in the old Organization they'd learned stealth techniques, how to move around without being seen or heard. The Organization had been a covert operation, after all. More than once Roxas had been sent on missions involving tailing a target from just out of sight, or sneaking around somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. Though more than once he'd screwed it up, too. He may have been a bit rusty, but it was time to put that training to the test once again.

"Follow me," Xion said and she ran across the wall of the castle, careful to keep her footsteps light. Roxas was right behind her, his steps in time with her own. Where could they be keeping Rydia? That was the question. A dungeon? They didn't know the layout of this castle though, so that could be anywhere. Xion silently dropped off the wall and landed on a ledge hidden in the shadows. Roxas joined her a moment later.

"You have no idea where you're going, do you?" Hidden in the shadows as they were, Xion could just make out a half-smile on Roxas's face.

"What, and you do?" Xion pointed below them, to a goon that was standing in front of a doorway. "Let's try this way first. We just need to find a way to distract or incapacitate the guard without bringing the whole castle down on us."

Roxas brought a hand up to his chin and hummed softly in thought. And when Xion was just about to ask him what he was planning he said, "I've got an idea." Oblivion appeared in his hand.

"Roxas, don't attack him!"

"Don't worry, I'm not." Roxas lifted Oblivion over his shoulder and then tossed it as hard as he could out into the castle courtyard. The black Keyblade was almost invisible against the dark stone and sky, and Xion quickly lost sight of it. She heard it land, though – it clattered loudly against the stone somewhere across the courtyard. And the goon below heard it too. He snorted and gripped his spear tightly in both hands before heading off to investigate the noise, while up on the ledge Oblivion flashed back into Roxas's hand. "There. A distraction."

That was clever of him, she had to admit. "Well let's hurry before he realizes there's nothing over there, then."

"Lead the way."

The two dropped down onto the ground and hurried through the doorway that the goon had previously been guarding. They found themselves in a large and open round room, but luckily it was an empty one. There was another door on the far end of the room, so Xion started making her way over to it. But Roxas grabbed her sleeve to stop her.

"Xion, look." Xion glanced back over her shoulder at Roxas and saw he was pointing in another direction. She followed his finger to an elevated part of the room up a short staircase. On the wall above a toppled stone throne was a threatening, familiar sight: sparkling stars drowned in a bright, pale blue light, pouring forth from a familiar shape.

"The Keyhole," Xion whispered. "Roxas, should we fix it now?"

Roxas's hesitation was visible on his face. "It's not as bright as Radiant Garden's, so I think we still have some time. Not a lot, but some. If we're about to enter another Dive to the Heart, then I'd rather we find Rydia first. Before something happens to her."

Xion nodded. That made sense. "Let's hurry then, and we'll come back here right away." The two made their way over to the exit, and with quick glances back at the Flood of Light, they hurried off into the next room.

The room they entered now was even larger and more open than the last, save for various circles of colored light that dotted the floor. It was a great hall that Xion had trouble figuring out the purpose of, if it even had one. A ballroom maybe? There was no door at the far end but there were several staircases that led down and out along the sides. But as Xion made her way toward the nearest set of stairs, a wall erupted out of the ground with a burst of darkness.

"Huh?" Xion stepped back and the wall retreated back into the ground. She tried to go another way, and another wall popped up. "How are we supposed to get through?"

Roxas picked up a broken piece of brick from the floor and bounced it up and down in his hand. "Let me try something." He tossed the brick at one of the nearby magic circles, a blue one, and it vanished as soon as it entered the circle's boundary. Roxas took a step toward it.

"Wait! What if it's dangerous?" Xion called after him.

"Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it's some sort of portal." With the first step Roxas took into the circle, he vanished just as the brick had. Xion took in a sharp breath and held it nervously, then in the distance heard a voice. "Xion! I was right!"

"Okay!" Xion called back, then slapped a hand over her mouth. If any guards were nearby, they just gave themselves away. She dashed off into the light, and her vision with white for an instant before she found herself standing next to Roxas in another part of the hall enclosed by walls. With her first step out of the circle her boot kicked against the brick Roxas had tossed in.

"It's some sort of maze," Roxas said. "Come on, let's try to find an exit."

Somewhat embarrassingly, Xion lost track of time as they moved from portal to portal trying to find an exit to the hall. But moreover that wasn't a good thing; the longer they took to find Rydia, the worse the Flood of Light was sure to grow. They couldn't afford to waste much more time. After numerous twists and turns, and navigating same-looking spaces created by those vanishing and reappearing walls, Roxas and Xion finally reached one of the staircases that led outside.

Once more they stood on a ledge overlooking some guards. The goons in question were standing in front of another staircase that moved even further down; Xion hoped that she and Roxas were going the right way toward the dungeon, or else this detour could cost them dearly.

"Should I throw my Keyblade again?" Roxas asked.

Xion shook her head. "This place is smaller than the courtyard, so there's a better chance they'd see the Keyblade before you bring it back to your hand." She bit her lip and looked around the room. They needed something more subtle, but still enough to grab the guards' attention… Aha. There, across the room: part of the wall looked like it would crumble at the slightest breath. Xion's Keyblade appeared in her hand and she pointed at the distant bricks. The glow of a Fire or Thunder spell would give them away, but Aero would do just fine. Wind swirled around the tip of Sign of Innocence, spiraling inward and condensing. With a flick of her weapon Xion sent the near-invisible bullet flying, and it hit its target dead-on. Part of the wall collapsed and brought a chunk of the second floor with it, causing the guards to scramble and try to figure out what was going on.

"Let's go!" Roxas and Xion jumped to the ground floor and sprinted at top speed down the stairs the goons had been guarding. It was a curved staircase, and as they moved further and further down Xion started to hear a sound – crying, the choking sobs of a scared little girl. "Rydia!"

Xion practically jumped off the stairs when they reached the bottom. There was only one cell down here, but their gut had proven them right: they found the dungeon. "Rydia, we're here!" Roxas ran to the wooden door and gripped the bars blocking its small window.

The crying cut off abruptly. "Roxas?!" Xion heard sniffling and little footsteps, and Roxas moved aside to let her peer through the window as well. Rydia peered up at them from within the dim, stone prison cell, her eyes red and cheeks puffy from crying. Her hands were still clasped by those odd manacles. "Xion too! You came for me!"

"Don't you ever doubt us for a second. You may be a brat, but you're our brat." Roxas's voice cracked with emotion as he spoke to her. "Rydia, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We told you we'd keep you safe, and we messed up."

"S-Stop crying! Dummy!" Rydia rubbed her arm over her eyes. "I… I…" She hiccuped and swiped a finger at her eyes, but despite her efforts started crying again. "I-I'm so s-scared! Where am I? Why-why did they take me?!"

"You're at Maleficent's castle," Xion said. "We don't know why, but we're getting you out of there. Right now." She and Roxas took a step back, and Roxas summoned Oathkeeper. Light fathered at the Keyblade's tip and shot toward the door. A  _click_  echoed through the dungeon, and a moment later the door swung open of its own volition.

It hadn't even opened all the way before Rydia ran out with tears streaming down her face.

Rydia practically jumped at Xion. She tried giving Xion a hug but the manacles kept her from wrapping her arm around the older girl, so she opted to bury her face in Xion's shirt instead. "Thank you. Thank you. I'm scared…" She kept repeating that, quietly thanking them as her body shook. Xion slowly ran a hand through Rydia's green hair.

Roxas stepped up beside them. "Let's get those off of you." Rydia pulled away from Xion and looked at Roxas, puzzled, then at his Keyblade. It slowly registered to her and she held up her chained wrists to him. With a simple tap of his Keyblade, the chains fell from Rydia's wrist to the floor and then vanished in a burst of green fire.

"Those didn't look like normal chains," Xion said.

"They stopped my magic somehow." Rydia curled and uncurled her fingers and fog slowly started forming around the trio's ankles. "I can use it again now, though." The fog vanished as she hugged herself. "Um, can I go home now?"

Roxas and Xion exchanged glances. She was tired and scared, and Xion could sympathize. But they couldn't leave just yet. Xion put a hand on Rydia's shoulder and knelt down to speak to her at eye level. "Almost, I promise. But not yet. Remember what Roxas said when we met? He and I have something we need to do on this mountain."

"Oh… Yeah. Okay." Rydia looked down at her feet and shuffled awkwardly. She looked so disappointed, and understandably so.

"There may be something you can do to help us, Rydia," Roxas said. Both Rydia and Xion glanced at him, curious. She didn't have a Keyblade, so what could she do? "We're kind of up against the clock, and if we need to sneak back the way we came it's possible we'll run out of time. Do you think your magic could give us a hand? Make it harder for the guards to see us?"

That was brilliant! Roxas shot Xion a wink in reply to the smile that had grown on her face, and then both looked to Rydia. "…Okay." She clenched her fists and nodded. "But you owe me, dummy."

Roxas snorted a laugh. "Whatever you say, brat."

Rydia held her hand up and white wispy clouds begin to spiral above her palm like a slow, miniature hurricane. As the clouds spun, their surroundings grew indistinct and white. Fog descended on the Forbidden Mountain, and just as it had in the forest soon they couldn't see more than a couple of feet in front of them. Xion conjured a flame in her open palm which helped a bit, certainly more than the goons would be able to see.

Suddenly a mighty roar shook the castle, and in an instant Roxas and Xion had summoned their Keyblades. On the floor above they could hear cries and a stampede of footsteps as the guards all over the castle started moving around in a frenzy. "What's going on?!" Xion shouted.

"I don't know. Come on!" Roxas led her toward the staircase, but then stopped so suddenly that Xion nearly collided with him. The two turned around and looked at Rydia, who hadn't budged. "Rydia?"

"Don't worry about it. I made a distraction!"

Wait a second, Xion had recognized that roar. Slowly realization dawned on her. "Your Mist Dragon."

"He's upstairs causing a commotion in the courtyard," Rydia said with a smug grin plastered on her face. "Now not only are we hidden, but the guards are too busy fighting him to do their jobs."

Roxas cheered. "Nice job, Rydia! Alright, let's get moving!"

Backtracking along the route they had taken to get to the dungeon wasn't an option since there was no easy way to scale the ledge Xion and Roxas had jumped down earlier. But with the guards off fighting Rydia's illusion, they had the freedom to search the lower floors for another way up. It took some doing, but eventually Rydia located a staircase that brought the trio up into the same large hall as before. Roxas swore as he realized they they had to work through portal after portal again. With the 'combat' raging outside as their background noise, Roxas, Xion, and Rydia made their way through the hall.

Instead of the passageway to the throne room being dark as it had before, though, it was now lit dangerously brightly. That was  _not_  good. Roxas ran ahead with Xion right behind him and Rydia holding her hand, but as Xion crossed the threshold of the doorway, Rydia suddenly stopped and let go. "Rydia! Come on!"

Rydia stared down at her feet, then up at Xion with wide, fearful eyes. "I-I can't! My feet won't let me!" She clutched at her yellow shirt. "My heart hurts… What's happening?"

Just like with their friends back at Radiant Garden. Of course, how could she forget? Xion hurried over to Rydia and put a gentle hand on her head. "Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with you. It's caused by the thing we have to deal with." She looked back at Roxas, who stood in the tunnel and was silhouetted against the Flood's light. "Rydia, wait right here. Don't move anywhere. I promise you we'll be right back." When Xion turned around to join Roxas, Rydia held tightly to her skirt and kept her from moving.

"You swear?" she asked with a shaking voice.

"I swear." Xion tapped the side of her head. "Got it memorized?" Slowly Rydia let go and nodded, and so Xion gave her a little wave and joined Roxas.

The two Keyblade-wielding Nobodies, the only ones who could battle the Flood of Light, faced the Keyhole with their Keyblades raised. Light gathered at the tips of their weapons, but just in in Radiant Garden the beams that would fire into the Keyhole never came. A ring of light pulsed out of the Keyhole and a familiar dizziness overtook Xion. Her grip tightened on her Keyblade and she held steady, unwilling to fall unconscious as she had before. Her vision went white and the floor gave out beneath her feet…

…and when she could see again, she was falling through a black abyss. Wind whipped at Xion's face and she tried frantically to make sense of her surroundings. Her Keyblade was still in her grip and – thank goodness – Roxas was falling just a little above her. A pinpoint of light was further above him, and growing more distant by the moment.

"Where are we?!" Xion cried. She fell through the air helplessly, tumbling this way and that.

Roxas wasn't fairing much better, but he did manage to point down below them. "I guess this is why it's called a  _Dive_  to the Heart."

Xion followed his gesture and looked down; far, far down. Amidst the blackness surrounding them was the familiar sight of the Station of Awakening. It was still distant, but growing ever closer. The image within the heart of Enchanted Dominion depicted a white castle with the spires surrounded by blue, red, and green lights. The good fairies?

When Xion finally managed to stabilize herself and take control of her dive, an embarrassing thought suddenly occurred to her. "Don't look up my skirt, Roxas!" Wait, he was above her. "Er, don't look  _down_  my skirt!"

Roxas fell past her with a disappointed expression on his face. "You're wearing leggings anyway."

"You looked?!" she shrieked. Her face heated up at Roxas's teasing laughter, and she pushed herself to catch up with him.

_And to show I bear no ill will, I too shall bestow a gift on the child._

A woman's voice echoed around them, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Did you say something?" Roxas called up to Xion.

"No, but I heard it too!" Xion replied.

Something appeared in front of them as they fell. It was a scene inlaid in what could only be described as an extravagant silver picture frame, and the frame hovered in space. The scene in question showed the wicked witch of Enchanted Dominion, Maleficent, as she stood in an extravagant audience chamber and spun her hand over her staff.

_Before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she shall prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel…and die!_

Roxas and Xion passed through the image and it vanished in a silent explosion of sparkles. Xion turned around to glance up as she fell, but there was no sign of it behind them. She turned back to face the approaching Station of Awakening again, only to see that three more frames had appeared in front of her and Roxas.

_Did you hear that my pet? All these years, they've been looking for a baby!_

_But don't you remember? We've met before!_

_What's this… Why aren't you asleep, boy? That fool Flora cast a spell to put everyone in this castle into a deep, deep slumber._

That last of the three scenes caught Xion's attention the most. The person in the image who Maleficent was talking to – it was Terra! Xion and Roxas passed between the three frames, and like the first image they disappeared into sparkles.

"Xion, do you have any idea what's going on?" Roxas asked.

That was a tough one. Clearly these were events that had happened before, because the good fairies had told them that Maleficent hadn't been back to Enchanted Dominion in years. Then maybe… "I think… I think maybe these are the world's memories," Xion said. "Important things that happened here, etched into the heart of Enchanted Dominion itself."

Once more three moments manifested between the two Keyblade wielders and their goal, and on each of the three images were familiar faces. Terra stood in front of a sleeping woman, Ventus and the good fairies stood in the throne room of Maleficent's castle, and Aqua confronted Maleficent alongside another man.

_What did I do? What did YOU do?_

_Huh? How do you know about me…and the Keyblade?_

_Maleficent! What did Master Xehanort tell you?_

"Why do you think we're seeing these?" Roxas asked as they passed through the latest set.

"I don't think there is a reason," Xion admitted. "I think it's just because we're in the world's heart, and hearts are where the memories are stored." She clutched at her chest tightly.

One last frame appeared in front of them. It was somewhere in the forest, similar to where Xion and Roxas had first arrived in this world though not the exact same location. A boy who looked to be about their age, dressed in black, white, and fuchsia with pale pink hair, lay face-down and unconscious on the soft grass.

 _Oh my! Are you alright?!_  The familiar voice of Fauna called from just out of frame and she ran over to the boy. She knelt down beside him and gently flipped him over, then brushed the grass off his face.

 _Dear! Can you hear me?_  Flora rushed into frame, with Merryweather right behind her.

Slowly, and with evident pain, the boy's eyes opened.  _I… Where am I…?_

_You're in the middle of the woods, dear. Do you know how you got here?_

_I don't… Where… Who…am I?_

The fairies gasped and spoke in hushed whispers under their breath.  _Something dreadful must have happened. Young man, do you know your name?_

The boy grasped for the words.  _My name…is…_

The frame vanished as all the ones before had, giving Roxas and Xion a perfect view of the Station of Awakening below. The two halted in midair, their dive having come to an end, and they flipped over so that their feet were pointed toward the stained glass pillar below them. A sot golden glow appeared in the dead center of the Station of Awakening, slowly but surely forming into the shape of a Keyhole. As one, Roxas and Xion pointed their Keyblades down toward the light. There was no noise save the harmonious sound made by the magic of Oathkeeper, Oblivion, and Sign of Innocence as the Keyblades gathered light. Three thin beams pierced the Keyhole together and the space around the Keyhole shattered, forming that familiar orange and blue pattern. Light rose up to fill their vision and Roxas and Xion felt themselves falling once again, but slower this time.

They gently touched down on solid ground in Maleficent's throne room. Behind them the Flood of Light had faded away until there was nothing but a faint Keyhole-shaped outline on the wall. But they couldn't rest just yet.

Xion gasped. "Organization XIII?!"

A man in an all-too-familiar black coat stood in the center of the circular chamber. Xion's eyes flickered from him to the figure beside him: Rydia struggled to get away, but the hooded man held her wrist tightly in his grasp.

"Let her go!" Roxas shouted. He leaped from the small ledge that the two of them stood on toward the black figure. But as he brought his Keyblades down, the figure blurred and vanished. Rydia dropped to the ground, freed of her captor, and then the stranger reappeared right behind Xion. Xion whirled around and pointed her Keyblade at him, while down below Roxas stood in front of Rydia protectively.

"I suppose I was too hopeful to think that those Nobodies would drive you off." The man's voice was off somehow, like he was using a spell to alter it. It must have been because if they heard his voice they would be able to recognize him.

"So you're the one who's been bossing them around?" Xion asked. Her mind went back to the Nobodies in Twilight Town; she knew they couldn't have been flying solo. "Who are you? How is the Organization still around?"

"It's not, don't you worry about that. I am working for my own interests." The white thorns of energy iconic to Nobodies wrapped around the man's right arm. "I didn't want to interfere directly, but it would seem you forced my hand. I see now that I should have taken care of the two of you like I did Demyx."

"You're the one who attacked Demyx?!" Xion barely had time to get the question out before he thrust his arm forward and sent a blast of pink-tinted wind at her. She felt her breath get knocked out of her when it impacted her chest and she was sent flying back, where she collided with Roxas. Rydia let out a cry of fear.

Roxas and Xion slowly untangled themselves and climbed up from the cold stone floor. The man's image blurred again and he reappeared to their side. Both Keyblade wielders charged at him only for him to teleport once more. Xion pivoted around and shot a Fira spell toward his new location, but a Dusk appeared at the last second and took the hit for him. Beneath the trio's feet a pit of darkness with a rose-colored outline opened up. Roxas was barely able to push Rydia out of it before a wall of wind swirled around them and then rapidly closed in, slicing at Roxas and Xion while the darkness attacked them from below.

When the attack vanished the two fell to their knees in pain, their Keyblades vanishing. A dark corridor appeared behind the stranger and he walked backwards into it while facing them. "Let this be a warning. Stop pursuing the Flood of Light."

The man disappeared into the darkness and the corridor collapsed behind him. After several long, silent moments, Rydia finally found her voice and hurried over to Roxas and Xion. "Are you two okay?!"

Roxas laughed, but his laugh was cut off by a sharp hiss of pain. He clutched at his side and the green glow of a Cure spell slowly washed over him. "We've had worse…"

Xion's entire body ached. "Who was he? He was hiding his voice…"

"I don't know. He never drew his weapon."

"You know him?" Rydia asked. "I'm sorry, he grabbed me while I was hiding from the guards…"

Xion shook her head and brushed a hand through Rydia's hair. "Don't be sorry, Rydia. He's a very dangerous man, and we had no idea he was even here. If anything we should apologize."

Roxas stood up and summoned his Keyblades again. He looked up through the windows near the roof of the throne room, then down to Rydia and gave her a tired smile. "Hey. What do you say we get you home?"

**x-x-x**

The flight back to the fairy moors on their Gliders was a quiet one. Rydia was homesick, Roxas and Xion had their minds occupied by Organization XIII, and all three of them were exhausted. Slowly but surely the forest beneath them transitioned to marsh, and then the marsh gave way to that familiar crystal clear lake. The Gliders touched down on a field of flowers on the water's edge, where Quina was waiting.

"What happen?" they asked.

Roxas sighed. "It's a long story. But I'm sorry, Xion and I–"

"They kept me safe!" Rydia said with a soft smile. "It all worked out in the end."

Roxas laughed and rested a hand on his hip. "Yeah. It sure did."

"Are you guys going now, since you did what you had to with your swords?"

"We are," Xion said with a nod. She looked up at the sky, where the sun was beginning to set. What a day this had been. "There are so many other places we need to go to and help. This was just one among many."

Rydia shuffled awkwardly and held her hands behind her back. "Can I see you again?"

Roxas ruffled her hair gently. "Of course! We'll be sure to come back here, brat. Don't worry."

Rydia stuck her tongue out. "Why would I ever worry about you, dummy?"

"I will make lots of yummy foods for next time." Quina hopped in excitement, their tongue starting to drool. "Maybe make some now too, in fact."

Xion laughed. "I definitely want to try your cooking someday, Quina. Just, hum, don't put anything weird in it, okay?" Xion paused as a thought came to her. "Hey, before we go, can we do one more thing?"

"What's that?" Roxas asked.

Xion shot him a grin and fished through her pockets for her Gummiphone. She turned to Rydia and Quina. "This is called a camera. I'm going to hold it up, and when I give the signal you give it a big, wide smile. Alright?"

Quina and Rydia nodded, though they didn't seem to get it. "And then I can eat it?" Quina asked.

Xion put her Gummiphone into selfie mode and held it up to capture all four of them, the lake reflecting the sunset in the background. "Okay, on three. One, two, three… Cheese!"

There were so many worlds out there. And if all of them had new friends like Rydia in them, maybe this adventure wouldn't be so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a long one! I considered splitting it into two, but there was no good spot to really do that.
> 
> I'm not really hiding the hooded man's identity anymore, and I'm pretty sure everyone can figure it out at this point. If you still haven't don't worry, he'll be unmasked next chapter. Roxas and Xion won't know who he is for quite a while yet though.


	12. The Big Olive

It was a dark place. Cold, damp, and quiet; well, mostly quiet. From some cavern in the distance the screams of tormented souls echoed down the tunnels to him. This world was like something out of a nightmare, and for once he wished he had not regained his heart so he would not have to deal with the pain and suffering that this dark underworld brought. But if he hadn't gotten his heart back, he wouldn't have known what it was he was missing. Still… He glanced at his surroundings: at the wispy white souls flying through the air above him, at the sickly green glow within the vast pit that he stood on the precipice of. Still, this was not a pleasant place to be.

He conjured an ethereal χ in his open palm and through it observed those who bore the Recusant's Sigil. Roxas and Xion had arrived on the world above and would soon be solving the Flood of Light in the city. That was…acceptable. Not preferable, but acceptable. There were many other worlds out there, and he only needed seven to be put to sleep. He could afford this one stay in the land of the waking. But he would have to isolate those two on this world before they interfered any further than they already had.

"Um, excuse me, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding?"

He dismissed the χ and glanced down at the stone bridge on which he stood, where two imp-like creatures stood at his feet. The thin blue one gestured toward the doorway in front of them. "He'll see you now."

"Thank you." With a nod of his hooded head, he left the chilling cavern and distant screams behind, ascending dark stone steps until he finally emerged in a large, round room. It was carved out of the same black rock that made up all of these twisted caverns, with large open windows looking out on the domain below. There were extravagant statues and gargoyles carved on the walls and ceilings, a map on a round table in the center of the room, and a throne against the far wall where the master of the Underworld sat. He looked bored, disinterested. His long, bony fingers tapped against his armrest.

"So who are you anyway, huh? Why do you think you feel the need to interrupt my 'me' time?"

Yes, he was an unpleasant sort. Quick-witted, silver-tongued, and short-tempered. But the man had heard tales of him and had known what to expect. He gave a dramatic bow and spoke with respect. "Hail Hades, Lord of the Dead. I come to ask of you a humble request."

"Request? I don't do requests, bub." Hades watched him closely, squinting his eyes and leaning forward. The god was clearly trying to peer under his hood. When he spoke again, there was a hint of curiosity in his voice. "I thought Maleficent told me you stiffs in black were all gone. What's the deal here?"

So Maleficent had been here recently? Interesting. "That witch spoke true, Organization XIII is indeed gone. I am working in my own interests now that my heart has been returned to me." He reached up and lowered his hood, revealing long pink hair and bright blue eyes. He brushed some of his hair back over his shoulder. "My name is Lauriam. I hope that you and I can come to a partnership – I know how much you like deals."

"Deals, huh?" Hades let out a breath, blowing up at his literally flaming hair. He leaned back in his chair but his former curiosity had vanished and disinterest was plain on his face. "Well I do like deals, but my last couple haven't exactly worked out for me." He paused to think, once again tapping his fingers on his armrest. "Still, tossing aside your old crew and flying solo? Hey, I can sympathize. So I tell ya what, you pitch your idea to me and I'll consider it. You're on the clock. And…go."

A time limit? That was unexpected, but Lauriam would take it in stride. As he spoke, Hades pretended to watch an imaginary wristwatch. Or perhaps wrist-sundial would be more accurate? "As you must know given your position, the boundaries of sleep and death touch. I am engaging on a journey of sleep and waking, but it is a dangerous one. Lord Hades, given your expertise on this subject, I was wondering if you may help me find an alternative path to my goals."

"Alright, yeah, that's enough. You can just go and skedaddle now. It was great seeing ya, toodle loo!" Hades began standing up from his chair.

 _No!_  Panic washed over Lauriam and he took a step back from Hades. If Hades attacked him here in the Underworld, in his own domain, Lauriam would stand no chance. "Do you know how to access the Final World?" he blurted out.

Hades paused in the middle of standing up. He eyed Lauriam curiously, one eyebrow raised and his lips pursed. Slowly, Hades sat back down in his chair, leaned forward, and steepled his fingers. "The Final World? That's what you're after?"

Panic gave way to relief. Lauriam couldn't help but bring his hand to his chest and let out a breath. "So you do know of it?"

"Yeah I know it. Of course I know it, who do you think I am? Hello. I'm the Lord of the Dead." Hades leaned back and tapped his long chin. What was going through his mind right now? "So let me see if I've got this right: you're trying to get into the Final World. You have a plan to do it, but it's a dangerous one, so you want me to get you in another way? That's where we're at right now?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Right, right. So I'm your plan beta. Hey, I ain't no beta." Hades tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. "Hm, the Final World… Final World, Final World…" Something seemed to click inside his mind, for his eyes suddenly lit up and a smile came to his face. "Alright, here's the deal."

Suddenly Lauriam felt Hades's arm around his shoulder. He looked beside him to see Hades leaning in conspiratorially. Lauriam hadn't even seen him move! "Yes, I can get you to the Final World. But hey, this is a two-way street. Nothing in life or the afterlife is free, got it?"

Of course. But Lauriam couldn't show his joy just yet, not here. It wouldn't do to let his guard down around Hades. So keeping his voice as level as he could, he responded, "I did say I was here for a deal, after all. Name your price."

Hades grinned and leaned in closer. "You may have heard, I was banished from Olympus – it's no big deal, long story. Anyway. There is something I need you to go there and get for me."

"You want a mere mortal to steal from gods?"  _This may have been a mistake_.

Hades slapped Lauriam's back. "Exactly – you're mortal! You'll fly right under their radar, they won't even know you were there. And hey, is it stealing to take back something they took in the first place?"

Lauriam frowned and his brow furrowed in thought. This was incredibly dangerous; if he were caught, he'd have no chance against the Olympians. But if Hades really could get him into the Final World without needing to go through with this…

"Fine. On one condition, though. Trespassing in Olympus is a big risk for me after all."

Hades grimaced. "What condition?"

Lauriam slipped out from under Hades's arm and stepped back. It never hurt to have a backup plan in place. If this partnership didn't work out, he'd need to deal with Roxas and Xion so they couldn't interfere with his first plan. He looked Hades in the eyes. "There are two Keyblade wielders in the world above. I ask that you keep them detained here on this world."

"Ugh. More key-slinging brats?"

"Friends of Sora's, in fact."

Hades's mood seemed to do a complete 180 at that. He let out a cackle and slapped his hand down on Lauriam's shoulder. "Really now! You don't say? Then Lauriam, my good friend, consider my handling them a favor with no strings attached."

**x-x-x**

The Gummiphone felt heavy in Roxas's hand. On the other end of the call Tron stood with his arms crossed and his eyes low, while his mind was off in thought. They had called Tron shortly after arriving on the next world, to catch him up to speed on what had happened in Enchanted Dominion. But he had been rather silent ever since finishing their recap.

"I see," Tron said at last. "So you think Organization XIII is still around, then?"

Roxas glanced at Xion, who shrugged. "We're not sure," Roxas admitted. "He said that he was doing this on his own, but it could have been a lie."

"He was hiding his voice too as if we'd recognize him otherwise," Xion added.

"Yes, you did mention that. Well, I'll alert Ienzo and he'll be sure to tell the others. Is there anything else I can help with?"

"Anything new with the data?"

"Has Demyx woken up yet?"

Xion and Roxas asked their questions at the same time, which prompted light chuckling from the two of them. They swerved around a crowd in the streets while Tron answered. "No on both fronts, I'm afraid. Demyx is stable now, but still unconscious. Terra, Ienzo, and I have been working furiously to figure out just what was stolen, but there's so much data to dig through."

Xion looked apologetic. "Well, take your time. At least now we're pretty sure that this mysterious man is the one who ordered the Nobodies to take it, so that's something of a lead."

Tron nodded. "That's very true. We'll keep doing our part, and you two keep doing yours. The worlds are counting on you."

Roxas gave a half-smile. "Yeah, no pressure. See you soon, Tron."

"Call me any time!" Tron waved and the Gummiphone's screen went black.

Xion moved a bit ahead through the crowds, then turned around with her hands behind her back and smiled at Roxas. "Alright, let's go find that Keyhole!"

The city they had found themselves in, Thebes, was enormous and lively. And despite its classical appearance, in many ways it seemed rather modern. From within a small group of people Roxas and Xion watched as a man holding up a ceramic vase turned it to swap from an image of a red hand to an image of a green man. As if it were a traffic light, the crowd began moving across the street that had previously been occupied by horses and chariots. All around them vendors called loudly to sell their wares, ranging from cheese and olives at stalls to sundials from men in long coats.

And all around them there were billboards, statues, and signs. Moreover, they were all images of the same guy. His face was impossible to escape from, whether he was advertising shoes and drinks, or being used to promote a store named after him, or even just the numerous statues of him scattered around. Sheesh, talk about hero worship.

"I had no idea this Herc guy was so popular," Roxas said. He stopped to admire the absolutely massive statue in the middle of the agora. He turned back to Xion. "I met someone who talked about him a lot when I came to this world before, and I've seen him from a distance a couple times, but my missions here never brought me to town so I never realized just how big a deal he actually was."

Xion tapped the side of her head. "It's fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure he and Sora were friends." Then with a frown, Xion looked at the statue again; more specifically, at the scaffolding surrounding it. Then she looked at the buildings around them, where more scaffolding was set up. "I came into town before on my missions, but this construction is all new. I wonder what happened?"

It was new? Well, everybody seemed to be getting along fine even if there was a lot of construction going on. Nobody seemed particularly down in the dumps. "Hopefully nothing too serious," Roxas said.

They continued moving through Thebes, past the agora into more twisting and turning streets and avenues. Everywhere they went there were signs of reconstruction and the occasional scorched stone. One avenue was blocked off by rubble with some people saying that Hercules was scheduled to come clear it later. Perhaps it was their Organization XIII training coming back to them, but Roxas and Xion couldn't help but listen in on conversations like that everywhere they went in Thebes. The Organization had drilled it into their heads to keep an ear out and learn everything they could about the world, after all. And something they consistently noticed as they were eavesdropping on passersby was that many of the Thebans were talking about something strange happening at one place in particular: the Coliseum.

The Coliseum was in the same place that Roxas remembered, but it looked completely different from how it used to. What had once been a rather humble arena was now a massive affair complete with ticket booths and multiple entrances. Some lingering piles of stone and tools told Roxas that it had been reconstructed too, though judging by the more complete state it was in than the rest of Thebes it looked like it had been rebuilt a while before whatever happened to the city. But it was so completely different from the Coliseum he remembered that the only way he was sure he was in the right place was by the familiar face standing at the front.

"Phil?"

Behind the crowd, Roxas and Xion came to a stop. Xion glanced at Roxas. "A friend of yours?"

"You could say that, yeah."

The short satyr who had trained Roxas during his previous visits to this world was standing atop one of the ticket booths and speaking to a crowd. His hand motions said he was trying to calm them down, but his face and voice said he was just as irritated as they were. "Folks, folks, please! I know you wanted to see some fights today, but we can't open the Coliseum!"

"What's the big idea?!"

"I paid for these tickets!"

The crowd roared with disapproval, and security guards had to keep a few people from climbing up to grab Phil. Phil took a step back and wiped at his brow before continuing. "Look, it's something beyond my control, alright? I called Herc but he was all the way up in Olympus and won't be here until tonight. And until then none of us can enter the Coliseum – that's not a rule, I mean we  _literally can't_. That lightshow is locking us out."

Xion's hand flew to Roxas's arm. "Did you hear that?"

Roxas's response was to call Oathkeeper into his hand. "Come on!" He grabbed Xion's hand and darted forward, shoving his way through the angry crowd and muttering apologies as he pushed people aside. Xion's fingers were wrapped tightly around his so they didn't get separated, and a brief flash told him that she had called on her Keyblade too. When they got to the other side of the crowd the guards were waiting for them and tried to hold them back, but Roxas and Xion shoved them aside with the flat sides of their Keyblades and continued to the door.

"Hey kid, you seriously can't go in there!" Phil shouted.

Roxas glanced back over his shoulder. "Sorry Phil, but the two of us actually can!"

"Wha– Roxas?!"

The interior lobby of the Coliseum was just as different from the old one as the outside was. Instead of a small cramped room, they were in a large and extravagant lobby complete with a fantastical painting of Hercules on the domed ceiling. Was this place a priority or what? It wasn't Roxas and Xion's priority though; no, they were focused on the vibrant blue light on the floor against the wall, next to a trophy case. Their Keyblades reacted to it: the Flood of Light.

"That was easier than to find than the last one," Xion said while turning her head to not look directly at the bright Keyhole.

Roxas pointed his Keyblade at it. "Yeah. And thank goodness too, because this one seems pretty far along. Perfect timing."

Xion's Keyblade joined his. "I'm ready when you are."

White filled their vision and the ground gave out beneath them as they began their now-familiar dive into the heart of Olympus Coliseum.

**x-x-x**

As in Enchanted Dominion, they finished the Dive to the Heart and fixed the Flood of Light without any problems. And as in Enchanted Dominion, during the dive they saw images: memories of the world itself. As they fell toward the Station of Awakening with Mount Olympus depicted upon it, Roxas and Xion saw a bearded man hurling lightning bolts at giant monsters. They saw Terra battling a soldier wielding the powers of darkness, and Sora riding a winged horse above the Coliseum's ruins as he fought a multiheaded monster. The last image was of Hercules glowing brightly as he held a woman in his arms.

When they felt the ground beneath their feet again, Roxas and Xion looked around and blinked as their eyes adjusted to seeing the lobby without the brightness of the Flood of Light. "I guess more of our friends than just Sora have been here?" Xion asked out loud.

Roxas nodded, but his mind was still trying to catch up to his body after that dive. "I guess so." The things they saw were all broken up, though – meaningless without any context.

"Hey kid!" Hoofsteps echoed on the tile floor of the lobby as Phil approached the two of them. Behind him outside, security guards were still working their best to keep the crowds from rioting. Phil stopped some distance from the two kids and tugged at his beard. "I knew I wasn't seeing things. How've you been, rookie?"

"Doing well!" Roxas dismissed his Keyblade and knelt down to give Phil a handshake. This guy was abrasive and a harsh teacher, but Roxas had to admit, he had fond memories of his time at the Coliseum. After all, Phil was the first person he met who saw something great in him, something more than just being Sora's Nobody.

_Order you? What are you talkin' about? It means I have faith you can win._

When Phil let go of Roxas's hand, he then slapped the kid upside the head. Roxas winced and rubbed his head as he stood up. "Last time we saw each other I said don't be a stranger. Then what do you do? You go and vanish for months!"

"Sorry, Phil. Some things came up." Roxas heard Xion giggling behind him. He turned around to see her trying and failing to hide it. "Oh thanks."

"Sorry," she said with another small laugh.

Phil didn't fail to notice Xion either. He slicked back his few remaining hairs and stepped forward. "Oh my, and who's this? Roxas, you went and found yourself a lady friend without tellin' me?"

"We're not–"

"I'm Xion." She too knelt down and shook Phil's hand. "Roxas and I have known each other for as long as we can remember."

"And he never thought to mention that he had a girl as cute as you? For shame, kid!" Roxas slapped a hand over his face in embarrassment and Phil leaned in to whisper conspiratorially to Xion. "Hey, if this pipsqueak isn't man enough for you, my schedule is open."

Xion grinned. "He is kind of scrawny, isn't he?"

"O-Okay, that's enough!" Roxas pulled Xion back up to her feet while hers and Phil's laughter made his cheeks grow hotter.

"Aw, you know I'm just messing with you, rookie." Phil looked around at the Coliseum's lobby, paying special attention to the Keyhole. He tugged on his beard again. "Now I'm old, but I'm not senile. There was a freaky lightshow in here before you two showed up. Care to fill me in on what that was?"

"It was something called the Flood of Light," Xion explained. "Roxas and I are traveling around and taking care of places where it's cropping up."

"Really now? You went and became a hero while I wasn't lookin', Roxas? I guess my training paid off." He paused and gave Roxas's right arm a judging glare. "Or maybe not. Xion was right, you are one scrawny kid."

"H-Hey!" Roxas sputtered and tried to stretch his short sleeves down over his arms, while Xion giggled again behind her hand. Why did she have to go and think Phil was funny?

Phil barked out a laugh and walked to the side, toward a reception desk. "Well if that light is all taken care of, then why don't you stick around for the Games? You're just in time to sign up."

Xion looked inquisitively between Roxas and Phil. "The Games?"

While Phil dug through some drawers at the reception desk, Roxas explained it to her. "A tournament, basically. I've joined in on it once or twice before." Those were fun times in retrospect, even if he had more than one surprise from them. Like Xigbar being his final match; his body ached for basically the whole day after that.

Xion shrugged. "Sounds fun I guess, but do we really have time for that?"

"What, you two in a hurry? Those lights can't be  _that_  common." Phil returned to them with a quill and stack of papers. "And here I was hoping I'd have more of my students than just Herc joining in the Sora Cup."

Xion and Roxas both froze on the spot. Just hearing that name put an immediate downer on their spirits. "Sora?" Xion managed to get out. Her voice shook as she said it.

Phil didn't seem to notice their discomfort. "What is this, XX Questions? He's a kid who's helped us out of more than one jam. Shame he couldn't be here for his own Games, but it sounds like he has important stuff to take care of." As Phil dipped the quill in some ink, Xion and Roxas shared a look without words between each other. A tournament named after Sora? That was…incredibly touching, and Roxas couldn't help but smile sadly. He really did make friends everywhere he went.

Phil wrote something down on the papers and spoke to them over his shoulder. "Hey, don't tell him I said this, but that kid is every bit a hero as Herc."

"From what I've heard, that 'hero' has been zeroed."

A new, low voice spoke up, and when Phil heard it his quill fell to the floor. Phil, Roxas, and Xion all whirled around to see a billowing pillar of smoke rising from the floor. The smoke spiraled and swirled and formed into a tall figure with blue skin, blue flames for hair, and a black toga that turned into clouds near his feet. He eyed Phil with an unimpressed gaze and then turned to the kids.

"And who do we have here? You're the Keyblade wielders I was told about? You're a couple of runts!"

"Who are you?" Light danced at Roxas's fingertips; he didn't summon his Keyblade just yet, but he was ready at a moment's notice.

The man looked offended. He pulled inward and put his hands on his chest in indignation. "Who am I?  _Who_ am  _I_? Yeah you clearly must be who I'm looking for, because anyone from here would know me! I am–"

"He's Hades, the Lord of the Dead." Phil cut the man off. Hades clenched his teeth and shot a glare at Phil. His burning hair flared up dangerously.

"Watch your tone, goat."

Phil laughed and put his hands on his hips. "What, you think you're some kinda threat or somethin'? Herc has dealt with you more times than I can count! Being a god don't mean much to a true hero, Hades!"

Wait, back up, a  _god_? As in a literal, honest-to-goodness divinity? And Phil was just talking him down like he was nothing! Roxas stared dumbstruck at the display in front of him; if he wanted to, this Hades guy could kick Phil away like a football, but all he was doing was making angry grunts as Phil continued to mock him.

"…and wait 'til you see the way Herc will deal with–'

"ENOUGH!" With a shout that shook the Coliseum, Hades's skin and hair flashed red. Phil fell on his back and Xion moved to help him, but the intense heat radiating off of Hades kept her back. After a moment Hades returned to normal and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, okay, okay. We're cool. It's cool."

Xion took the chance and helped Phil up to his feet. "You said you were looking for us. What do you want?"

"Right! Yes. I did say that, didn't I? And Wonderboy isn't around to interfere, no matter what the old goat says. So what do I want? I'm glad you asked…" Hades held one hand out and black clouds swirled around in his palm. The clouds formed into two small statues, miniature scale figurines of Roxas and Xion.

Phil gasped and turned to the two of them. "Kids, the two of you have gotta run–"

"That's enough from the peanut gallery." Hades snapped his fingers and chains appeared to bind Phil's mouth. He grinned at Xion and Roxas, showing his sharp teeth. "What I want to is to keep up my end of the bargain. And to do that, I need the two of you to stay put. So see these statues?" A glow enveloped Xion's statue, and then Xion fell to her knees with a gasp.

"Xion!" She was grasping her head and moaning in pain, but as Roxas moved to help her his statue began to glow too. His entire body felt like it was on fire and he fell onto the cold ground. "What is…" Fighting through the pain, Roxas clutched tightly at his chest. "What are…you doing…?!"

The glow vanished from the statues, and the pain faded from them soon after. Roxas and Xion both slumped onto the floor, panting heavily. Roxas struggled to glare up at Hades. His entire body was heavy and limp, and he imagined Xion felt the same. "What…did you…do?" Xion asked through labored breaths.

The statues dissolved into clouds and hades clasped his hands behind his back. "I made sure you two wouldn't be going anywhere, that's what. You're soulbound now, and you won't be setting one foot off of this world as long as I say so. …Now what do we have here?" As Phil struggled against his bonds, and Roxas and Xion struggled to climb to their feet, Hades sauntered over to the papers Phil had been working on as if the three of them weren't even there. "You're hosting the Games again? I hadn't even realized you'd rebuilt the Coliseum. Is that what this place is? Pretty impressive, I must say." He glanced around at the lobby, especially at the painting of Hercules on the ceiling.

Roxas continued to fight through the pain coursing through his body. He pushed himself up onto his feet, though his legs wavered. "Hades, right? Listen, we're not going to play your game–" Hades turned around and gave him a disinterested flick in the forehead, knocking Roxas down onto his back.

"Stop talking, I'm busy. The pain will wear off in a minute, pipsqueak." Hades used Phil's quill to scratch the side of his head as he started pacing about the room in a circle, looking between Herc on the ceiling and the paper in his hand. "You know what, I have just had a wonderful idea! You want to enter the Games? Oh, you'll enter the Games!"

"What are you talking about– ugh..aaaAAAGH!" Xion cried out in pain as a glow enveloped her body. The miniature statue of her had reappeared in Hades's hand and mirrored the glow around Xion.

"Stop! Stop hurting her!" Roxas shouted over Xion's distress. Her screams made him want to scream, to attack Hades then and there. He forced his body to respond and once more climbed up to his feet just as the glow disappeared from her. The glow around the statue transferred to the quill and it began moving of its own power, writing Xion's name down on one of the papers.

"HADES!" Despite his arms feeling like lead, Roxas called both of his Keyblades into his hands.

With shaking hands, Xion slowly pushed herself up off the ground. "Roxas…don't…"

Roxas barely took four steps before he froze in the air. His Keyblades clattered to the ground and he shot a glare at Hades, who now held the Roxas statue in his hand. As it had with Xion a glow enveloped both Roxas and the statue and then transferred over to the levitating quill, which wrote Roxas's name down on the other paper. Roxas dropped to the floor for a third time as the papers settled neatly down on the desk.

"So, now that I have your attention." Hades kicked the bound Phil aside, rolling him across the floor so Hades could stand where he was. "As I said, the two of you can't leave this world as long as you're soulbound. The term is literal: your souls are bound to those little figurines of mine. But here is our deal, are you listening? This is your out."

Hades gestured to the door leading outside, where the crowd still stood. They weren't trying to get in anymore though, not when they could see Hades clear as day. They had grown silent and were watching in hushed fear. "These people, the good folks of Thebes, they want a show. So we'll give them a show! Roxas and Xion, was it? If you two want to be free to run about all the worlds you want then you'll enter the Games, you'll win, and when your turn comes to fight Hercules…" He grinned, baring his sharp teeth. "You kill him."

Phil cried out, but his words were muffled by his chains. "You're insane!" Xion cried.

"And  _you_  don't have a choice," Hades replied. He steepled his fingers and chuckled darkly. "That's the only way you're getting out of here. If you don't fight Hercules to the death, you'll just have to live out the rest of your days in Thebes. Sorry about that. But hey, at least it's a nice city, right? Better than Sparta, let me tell you."

And with that Hades disappeared in a cloud of smoke as suddenly as he had come. Roxas and Xion lay there on the cold floor of the lobby for some time as the pain slowly subsided and strength returned to their bodies. Xion was the first to manage to climb to her feet, perhaps because Roxas had to deal with Hades's attack three times while she did only twice. She hurried over to Phil and tapped her Keyblade against his chains, causing them to evaporate into darkness.

"Are you okay?" Xion asked.

"Am _I_  okay? The question is are  _you two_  okay?" Phil was frantic, his eyes wide and forehead coated in sweat. "You kids are stuck here unless you beat Herc, and trust me, that's not gonna happen!"

"Let's see if Hades was telling the truth before we panic." Roxas pointed his Keyblades forward and focused on what Terra, Aqua, and Ven had taught them. He called on the power within the weapon and a beam shot forth, forming a familiar bright gateway: access to the Lanes Between.

"Was Hades wrong then?" Xion's voice was quiet.

Roxas didn't respond just yet. He moved toward the opening to the Lanes and slowly stretched his hand through. Nothing happened. Taking a breath, Roxas walked through like he had done several times by now…

…And nothing happened. He passed through the portal and came out the other side as if it was just empty air, like the Lanes weren't even there. The portal closed after a moment and Roxas stared down at his Keyblades. "No, it looks like we really can't leave."

"Then we do have to enter the Games after all, huh?"

Phil rubbed his face and laughed weakly. "Well… Okay, okay. Everyone calm down." He was the only one panicking, though. Not that Roxas was comfortable with this at all, he wasn't. He just wasn't panicking. Maybe it hadn't set in yet. He exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Xion.

Phil was pacing. "Okay, alright. Right. Well!" He picked up the papers that Hades had signed for them and sighed. "Don't' worry, I'll try to find a way so you don't need to find Herc. But um, let's make the best out of a bad situation, alright? No reason you guys can't have fun in the Sora Cup anyway, yeah…"

"Sure! No reason we can't." Xion's smile was a bit forced, despite her reassuring words.

"I'll turn in this paperwork then. Um." Phil looked between the two of them. "The Games aren't gonna start until Herc arrives from Olympus tomorrow. Have you guys got anywhere to stay tonight?"

**x-x-x**

Seeing more of Thebes did lighten their spirits some. The sky was bright and the people were cheerful, even if most of the town gossip was about Hercules. Phil led Roxas and Xion to a large hotel in the city with a golden statue of a lion out front. The inside was, like Roxas's impression of the rest of the city, surprisingly modern despite its classic architecture. As Phil spoke to the man at the reception desk, Roxas and Xion examined the first floor's full-fledged casino, complete with card tables and fully functioning slot machines made out of marble and porcelain.

"This world feels almost like we're in a theme park version of ancient times," Xion said with a small laugh.

"No kidding." Roxas took a two samplings of cheese off a passing waiter's tray and handed one to Xion. "Are you doing okay?"

Xion shrugged. "I'm fine. I mean we're not in a great situation here, but there are worse places we could be right now."

"I guess so." Roxas shoved the cheese in his mouth and took a minute chewing before he continued. "Phil is right, let's try and make the best of a bad thing. The Games could be fun."

"Tonight we can try to work out a way to avoid fighting Herc too, if he's as strong as Phil says."

"You kids can worry about that tomorrow," Phil said, intruding on their conversation. He handed the pair a room key. "Listen, alright? I want you two to have a good time, because this is partly my fault for having those sign-up sheets out where Hades could see 'em. So tonight there's gonna be a fancy show down here at VII sharp. You can mope around in your room if you want, or you can come down here and relax a bit."

Xion took the key, a ceramic card with a painting of Herc's smiling face on the side. "We don't have any clothes but these."

"No problem. Your room comes with some options in the closet, just pick your favorite."

"Wait. Room, singular?" Roxas asked.

Phil side-eyed him. "You think I could afford two rooms? I'm not made of munny, kid! It's up on the fourth floor, but don't you two try anything funny because it's registered under my name."

Roxas was about to ask what Phil meant by 'anything funny', but Xion cut him off. "Thanks for everything Phil, really. We'll see you down here at seven."

"Hey, I'm looking forward to it. Have a good evening, kids."

With Xion in the lead, they climbed several flights of stairs up to the fourth floor and found their way to their hotel room. There wasn't too much too it, but it was nice. Small but comfortable, with a bathroom, closet, desk, and two beds. There was even a window door that opened onto a balcony with a great view of the city. As Roxas looked around the room, Xion opened the closet.

"Phil wasn't kidding, there's a bunch of suits and dresses in here!"

Roxas turned from a sundial he'd been examining to see Xion holding up two dresses, one white and one red. Immediately his face flushed; the white dress was backless, and the red had a dangerously low neckline. "Xion, I don't think those are appropriate–"

Xion tossed a tan suit at him. "Here, go in the bathroom and try this on while I get dressed." She put those two dresses back on the rack and started searching for another, and Roxas wasn't sure whether to be thankful or disappointed at that.

"Why do I get the bathroom?"

"Because girls need more privacy."

Roxas looked over at the large window leading toward the balcony. It made up nearly an entire wall of their hotel room. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Inside, Roxas! If you stay any longer and see something, you'll need to explain your black eye to Phil." She was already starting to pull her shirt up over her head.

"Okay, okay! I'm going!" Roxas rushed into the bathroom and shut the door as if Xehanort himself were on his tail. He set the tan suit down near the sink and stared into his reflection in the mirror. What were they doing attending a party? They should be invading Hades's home base and trying to get the statues and freeing themselves from Hades's contract. He shouldn't be going on a dat– da–

…

Okay, so maybe it wouldn't be too bad to spend some time with Xion. Things had been 'go go go' ever since Ienzo called them back in Twilight Town. Even in Enchanted Dominion their downtime was limited. If he got one night off… That was doable. It was like his vacation back in the Organization.

He heard a thud outside, followed by Xion grumbling. "Ow! Stupid heels…"

With a sigh, Roxas started putting the suit on. A tan dress shirt with brown slacks and vest, and like everything else in Thebes it was this weird mix of ancient and modern. There were swirling patterns on the fabric similar to ones he'd seen on some Thebans' clothes. After a moment of thought Roxas decided to keep his bracelet and rings on, too.

Adjusting his collar to be more comfortable, Roxas knocked on the door. "Xion, are you decent?"

"Yup!" Well she sounded chipper.

Roxas opened the door and stepped out to see Xion waiting for him with a bright smile. She was in a purple spaghetti strap dress, much more conservative than either of the ones she had looked at before though Roxas made sure not to linger too long on the skin it did show. A thin, pale purple ribbon was tied around her waist, and a flower of the same color was held on the black choker around her neck.

"What do you think?" Xion asked. She brushed some hair behind her ear, and Roxas saw that she still had her charm bracelet on.

"You look…wow. Uh, sorry." Roxas coughed into fist. "You look good, Xion."

Pink creeped up Xion's cheeks as her eyes wandered up and down Roxas. "T-Thanks. You do too. So, um…" She shyly stepped up to Roxas. A sweet scent found his nose; was that the flower on her choker, or was she wearing perfume now? Would it be creepy to ask?

Roxas's eyes flickered to the sundial. "You read to go?" He rubbed the back of his head and then awkwardly held his arm out. Xion looked down at her feet, fiddled with the hem of her dress, and then quickly looped her arm around Roxas's as if she didn't want anyone to see.

"Yeah. Let's go."

They retraced their footsteps and found themselves back on the first floor, where the casino had largely emptied out. What stragglers remained directed the pair to a door at the far end of the floor. A man in a fancy suit was standing at a podium and letting attendees in, and when it came to Roxas and Xion's turn, Roxas looked up at him nervously. "Do we, um, need tickets?"

The concierge eyed the two of them strangely before smiling. "Ah, you're the couple that Hercules's manager told me of? He has already paid for your access. Your seat is at table sigma."

"Phil paid for us?" Xion looked at Roxas in surprise. "He didn't have to do that."

"We'll have to pay him back later. Hey, maybe with our winnings from the Games. Um, thank you, sir." Roxas nodded to the concierge and Xion gave him a little wave, and then the two stepped through the door.

The room was massive, just as big as the casino but not taken up by games. Instead the brightly polished floor was full of dining tables, each topped with a fanciful bouquet and plate of grapes for an appetizer. The walls of the room were lined with extravagant wreathes and flowers, gold statues stood in the corners, and torches every few yards provided a soft orange glow. But the most eye-catching part of the room was the stage. On the stage's back wall was a large stone mural depicting five women, each beautiful in their own way.

Roxas and Xion's reserved table was easy to find. Even if they hadn't been told it was table sigma, Phil was there waiting for them. "Well if you kids don't clean up nicely! So, what do you think?"

"This is a little higher society than I was expecting," Xion admitted. Her face shone with awe as she looked around the room. Phil pulled out her seat for her, and Roxas stood around awkwardly for a moment waiting for Phil to help him get seated too before he realized that wasn't going to happen. Embarrassed, he quickly got into his chair beside Xion.

Phil laughed and downed a cup of wine in one gulp. "Yeah, bein' pals with a celebrity sure has its perks!"

"What is yours and Herc's history anyway?" Roxas reached for one of the appetizer grapes as he asked his question. "All I know is you're his trainer, but is there more to it than that?"

Phil grinned slyly. "Kid, that is exactly what this show tonight is going to answer. The ladies have been putting together a little recap to celebrate Herc, Sora, and everyone else who've worked to save this city."

"What ladies?" Xion asked.

And then the torches lighting the room went out, plunging everyone into darkness and silencing all conversation. A band began playing upbeat music, and now some torches near the stage lit up to show off the mural. Against the firelight, it almost looked like the women engraved on the stone were dancing. Wait a minute… Roxas gasped and Xion clapped her hands in surprise as the women sprung to life. Color filled the grey stone and they began bopping their hips in time to the band's music. The one in the center bowed to the applauding audience and began to speak.

"We are the Muses, goddesses of the arts and proclaimers of heroes."

"Heroes like Hercules."

"Honey you mean  _Hunk_ ules! Woohoo, I'd like to make some sweet music with him!"

"Our story actually begins long before Hercules." As four of the five women started to hum, the apparent leader reached down and extended part of the mural to stretch over the stage like a red carpet. The music grew louder. "Many eons ago…"


	13. When in Thebes

_So don't lose hope when you're forlorn  
_ _Just keep your eyes upon the skies  
_ _Every night a star is  
_ _Right in sight a star is  
_ _Burning bright a star is born!_

A standing ovation accompanied the Muses as they performed the final song of the show, and didn't let up even as they all struck poses and turned back into stone on the mural. It didn't stop as the curtains fell, and neither did the music. When the curtain rose again a moment later, the applause grew reinvigorated. After all, the show hadn't just been the Muses singing some songs, it was a full musical production. As the stone Muses bopped their hips and hummed to the music, the actors that had played Hercules and all his friends and foes held each other's hands in a line and bowed.

"That was amazing, Phil! …Phil?" Xion looked to the third seat at hers and Roxas's table, but Phil was nowhere to be found. She hadn't even noticed him leave, she'd been so engrossed in the show. She glanced at Roxas who shrugged, just as unaware of where Phil had gone.

The curtain fell once more and the torches around the perimeter of the room were relit, signaling that the show was over. Excited chattering rose up as the attendees began talking amongst themselves about their favorite scenes and characters. After sitting back down, Xion turned to Roxas. "I don't know about you, but I totally get why he's a big deal now. What a hero!"

Roxas laughed. "Though I wonder how much the writers downplayed our friends' involvement."

Xion laughed right with him. "I dunno. Don't tell Aqua I said this but they may have  _over_ played our friends. I mean, fighting Hades and one of the Titans all on her own?"

Roxas grinned from ear to ear and pulled out his Gummiphone. "Yeah, you're probably right. But if she really did then she won't be happy when I tell her you doubted her!"

"Roxas!" Xion whined. She grabbed at his phone, but Roxas held it above his head and out of her reach. As if they were at home instead of at a fancy dinner, Roxas and Xion all but wrestled each other over the phone, Xion trying to grab it and Roxas trying to keep it away from her. It wasn't until Xion nearly fell out of her seat that the two realized exactly what they were doing and stopped – and then Xion grabbed Roxas's phone from him while he wasn't looking.

"Hey!"

"You better not let your guard down like that in a fight." Xion stuck her tongue out and gently tossed the Gummiphone back at him. "Here. This dress doesn't have any pockets for me to keep that in anyway." At mention of the dress Roxas's gaze flicked from her eyes down to somewhere a little lower. Xion felt heat rise up in her face, so she reached toward his phone again rather than let the moment get uncomfortable. "If you can't behave you don't get to keep your things."

"Alright, alright! I'll be good." Roxas held up his hands in defeat, and when Xion pulled her hand away with a giggle he pocketed his phone.

The conversations between the attendees about the show continued for some time, as well as small talk between Xion and Roxas – 'you look nice', 'the food is good', and so on. Xion picked at what was left of her dinner, and Roxas stole some cheese from the next table over whose occupants had already left. More and more people began to head out as the night drew on, but Roxas and Xion still didn't. Not without knowing where Phil went at least.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" The remaining attendees were called by a short figure standing on the stage. What was Phil doing up there? "I'm glad you all enjoyed the show, it was a real pleasure to work on behind the scenes, get some details ironed out. And I know we've all been waiting all day, but you all know the guy's busy. But I'm glad to say you don't need to wait anymore!"

Cheers and applause rose up again, albeit not as loud now that the room had mostly emptied out. Roxas tapped Xion on the shoulder. "Wait for what?"

Xion shrugged as she dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. "I'm not sure."

Phil seemed to be providing most of the energy in the room; he was surprisingly upbeat despite the late hour. "Ladies and gentleman, the man of the hour! Back from Olympus, the mighty Hercules!"

The doors flung open for a man and woman to walk in, accompanied by applause. There was no mistaking the man, even if they hadn't just watched the play his face was plastered all over town. Hercules looked rather embarrassed at all the attention but the woman at his side put her hand on his arm and then he stood up straight and took it all in stride.

"Thank you, thank you. I'm sorry I'm late everyone, but it's great to be here. You all enjoy the show?" The audience cheered, and Herc grinned brightly. "I saw their dress rehearsal. It really is uh, something else alright. And I promise you more entertainment tomorrow at the Sora Cup!"

The crowds swarmed around Hercules, shoving his companion aside. But both of them took it in good fun, his ladyfriend watching with a smile and her hand on her hip as Herc gave autographs and shook hands left and right. Eventually his fans were pushed out by Phil and some security guards. "Yes, yes, we're all really happy to see Herc, but the champ needs his beauty sleep for the Games tomorrow. Thanks for coming, everyone. Good night!" Phil slammed the door shut and then slumped down to the floor and wiped his brow. "Oy…"

Herc laughed. "I know it's not exactly your comfort zone, but thanks for handling all this tonight, Phil."

Phil climbed back to his feet and pointed a finger up at Herc. "Hey, you owe me." He looked over to the sole remaining guests, Roxas and Xion, who watched quietly over in their seats. "Hey Herc, that's them. The kids I told you about when you got back. The ones Hades got to."

Herc's smile vanished. He looked over to Roxas and Xion, and they practically shrank beneath the weight of a true hero's gaze. He lingered especially long on Roxas, and looked almost…confused? But after a moment his smile returned and he walked over to them. "Hey there. I guess you know, but I'm Hercules." He held his hand out to Roxas. "You're participating in the Sora Cup, right?"

Roxas stood up and took Herc's hand, then almost lost his footing by the strength behind the handshake. "Uh…" He had to regain his footing before replying. "Yeah. I'm Roxas, and this is Xion."

Herc rubbed his chin. "You're the kid Phil trained a few months ago, right?" At Roxas's nod, Herc looked him up and down. "You know, you look like an old friend of mine. I actually thought you were him when I first saw you, but he'd be much older now."

"You mean Ventus?"

"Oh right, I guess you guys did see the show so you'd know about him." Roxas and Xion exchanged knowing smiles at each other. Then Herc asked, "So what did you think?"

Xion got up from her seat and held her hands behind her back. "It was real fun! If even half of it is true then you really a hero just like everyone says, Hercules."

Hercules rubbed his neck. "Oh, you're just saying that…"

The woman he'd come in with chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder. "Wonderboy here gets all red in the face whenever someone brings it up. The guy just can't handle compliments."

"Oh, right. Sorry, we haven't finished introductions." Hercules took the woman's hand and turned to Roxas and Xion. "Roxas, Xion, this is–"

"Megara!" Xion practically jumped when she realized who she was talking to. "I loved you in the show– I mean– sorry, that sounds weird. You know what I mean!"

Megara smirked. "Just call me Meg, alright? And thanks; I'm glad to hear that girls out there know I'm more than just a pretty face." She looked Xion up and down. "You know, you're a pretty face too. Your boyfriend over there is a lucky guy."

Xion felt all of her blood rush up into her face at once. "Roxas isn't my– A-And I'm not…" She trailed off and glanced at Meg's figure before looking away.  _Not like you, anyway._

Meg sighed. "Relax, Xion. I'm just teasing you." Then she turned whisper something into Herc's ear and he chuckled with a nod. Well that certainly didn't help Xion's embarrassment. She kept her eyes glued to her feet as she tried to hide her blushing face, but she could feel Roxas watching her.

Phil cleared his throat to get their attention. "Anyway, I think it's time we start addressing the chimera in the room. What do we do about Hades?"

Roxas coughed awkwardly. "Um, yeah. Right. I guess we can't just like, not participate?"

Phil sighed. "I wish it were that easy rookie, but no. You can't just drop out of the Games, because Hades's magic is binding. That's what the lightshow when he signed you up was all about."

Hercules crossed his arms. "He used those statues of his, right? We've dealt with them before. You're lucky he just bound you; if he wanted, Hades could have used them to strip your free will away entirely."

"They key is to break the darn things, but you have to find them first. Trust me, I know how they work from personal experience."

"And we can't exactly break them if we're busy in the Games, huh…" Roxas mused.

"Why don't I just drop out?" Hercules offered. But Phil admonished him with a slap on the leg.

"No way, champ! The people are watching this tournament for you above all else. Ya gotta give them a show!"

Meg put a hand on her hip. "Besides, Wonderboy, Hades's condition is killing you and not just participating in the Games. You dropping out wouldn't help Roxas and Xion at all."

Herc deflated, his shoulders visibly slumping. "I guess you're right."

Xion had been standing in an embarrassed sort of funk during the conversation, but now she slapped her cheeks to clear away her thoughts and finally spoke up. "Then we need to get our hands on the statues somehow. Could we just run in and grab it?"

"Hades already left Auron's statue unguarded before. I doubt he'll make the same mistake twice."

Suddenly, before they could discuss any further, something shook the entire hotel. The group went quiet as the building around them rang like it was a giant bell that had just been hit, and then Hercules broke into a run toward the doors.

"What was that?!" Phil shouted, chasing after him.

"Xion, let's go!" Roxas grabbed Xion's hand and started running before she could even register it.

"I'm coming!"

All of them hurried through the casino, past surprised and cowering guests and employees, and out into the streets of Thebes.

Phil grasped the sides of his head. "Oh come on! We  _just_  got the city fixed up!"

The golden lion statue that had been outside the hotel was in ruins, scorch marks dotted the walls of other buildings, and holes had broken along the road. All around them the city, which was lit by torches and the full moon, was assaulted by familiar and unwelcome faces: Heartless. Rabid Dogs, Lance Soldiers, Hook Bats, and more.

Hercules knocked a Lance Soldier aside, and with one punch it faded back into darkness. "These are all breeds of Heartless that Hades kept in the Underworld last time I was down there. Which means…"

"Oh, I love the smell of chaos in the evening!" With a puff of smoke, Hades appeared standing on top of a building that was currently being assaulted by Rabid Dogs. "Hey there Jerkules, how you doing tonight? Feeling a little distracted, maybe?"

"Distracted? What are you up to this time, Hades?" Herc leaped the distance between them in a single bound and brought his fist down on Hades, but the blue-skinned snarker vanished right before he was clobbered. "Hades! Get back here and fight– uh oh." The building beneath Herc's feet rumbled and then fell apart, revealing a massive Rock Troll within it.

Sign of Innocence was already in Xion's hand. "Roxas, let's get going!"

"I'm already there!" Roxas darted forward aglow with white light, both Oathkeeper and Oblivion in his grip.

"Xion!" Phil called to her from the hotel entrance. "Are you seriously gonna go fight Heartless in high heels?!"

Xion came to a stop and glanced down at her feet for a moment. Then she looked over to Phil and Meg and grinned. "I did that every day for a year, so, you know. I suppose so!" And holding her Keyblade tightly, she ran off into the fray.

While Phil's jaw dropped, Meg watched Xion run off with a smile. "I like her."

"Thunder!" Xion thrust her Keyblade up and called on bolts of lightning to strike at a group of Hook Bats that were harassing Roxas, then spun like a dancer to avoid an attack from a Lance Soldier. She dropped to the ground when the Heartless swung at her again, then kicked her feet out and spun on her hands to knock both it and a nearby Rabid Dog aside. Not the easiest thing to do in a dress, but she managed. The Lance Soldier's lance went flying from its grip only to be caught by Roxas, who quickly tossed it back and impaled both Heartless at once.

With light coating his body Roxas darted across the battlefield slashing away at a variety of Heartless. He never stopped even once, striking Heartless left and right and always on the move. If something didn't fall in one or two hits then he sent bolts of gold and blue light out behind him from his Keyblades while he dashed toward his next target. He leaped into the air and grabbed a Hook Bat, then while it kept him airborne he spun it around and used it as a weapon against its fellow Heartless. Once he dropped back to the ground Roxas pivoted around to block an attack from a Rabid Dog, having it bite down on Oblivion instead of on him. With the dog's teeth caught on the Keyblade, Roxas flipped Oathkeeper around backhand and dug it into the Heartless's back. And then a large shadow fell on him.

"Roxas, behind you!" Xion cried.

For once Roxas was too slow. The Rock Troll's axe fell down upon him, but just before he was struck flat by it Hercules intervened. With just his bare hands Herc held back the massive Heartless's equally giant weapon. Even with the size disparity Hercules didn't struggle to hold back the Heartless; if anything, the Heartless was struggling to break free.

"Roxas, Xion, now! While he's stuck!" Hercules cried.

The two Keyblade wielders complied without a word. Roxas tossed Oathkeeper right at the Rock Troll's forehead and then shifted into particles of light and flew toward his weapon. When he was physical again he hung in front of the Heartless's face, leaving him open to swing as he pleased with oblivion. Meanwhile down on the ground, Xion moved with the grace of a dancer around its stomping feet, jumping into melee range to strike it with her Keyblade, then out to cast spells, and repeat. The Rock Troll swung its left fist at her and Xion threw up a Reflect, the magical counter from the impact knocking the Heartless off balance. As it stumbled Roxas kicked off its face and landed beside Xion.

"Herc, you ready?" Roxas called.

"When you are!"

Roxas's aura expanded to coat Xion and the two of them held their Keyblades out. Three thin beams of met halfway and crashed into the Rock Troll as a single lance of light. The Rock Troll recoiled, and combined with its lost balance its feet finally gave out beneath it. Herc, still holding tightly to its axe, lifted the Rock Troll high above his head.

"Get clear!"

They didn't need to be told twice, nor did all the Thebans who had been watching the fight. Everyone ran as fast as they could away from Hercules, but the mindless Heartless didn't get the memo. Herc spun round and round while holding the Rock Titan tight in his grip, and the massive Heartless easily mowed down all of its smaller comrades. When all that was left was the big guy, Hercules tossed it high up into the sky where it exploded in a burst of darkness.

Calm settled on Thebes once more, but though the fight was over they weren't done yet. Herc looked around at the damage. "At least it's localized just to this block, but… Man, we just fixed the city up from last time. I guess we better get to work." He started making his way over to a pile of lumber that was left over from the previous reconstruction.

"Hold it, Wonderboy." Meg grabbed Herc's hand. "The three of you have a big day tomorrow. Go get some rest. Phil and I can handle things here."

"Meg… No, I can't…"

Phil approached the four of them with his arms crossed. "Meg's right. Champ, you and these rookies will have to show the crowd your stuff tomorrow. You can't do that if you've been up all night workin' on construction." His face softened. "Look, your heart's in the right place. Any other time I'd agree with you. But people are still worried after the Titan attack, and they're gonna want to see the Games as a way to relieve their stress. It's good for morale."

"Phil…" As Herc considered it, Xion yawned into her hand. She had thought she was being as quiet and respectful as she could be, but everyone turned to her.

She gave a bashful smile. "S-Sorry. It's late."

Herc laughed. "Alright, you win. Xion, Roxas, you guys got rooms, right?"

"Yeah, Phil set us up."

"Then I'll see you at the Coliseum in the morning." He gave Meg a peck on the cheek. "Phil, don't let Meg stay up too late either."

Everyone said their goodbyes, and then Roxas and Xion returned to their hotel. Thankfully though the lion statue had been damaged, the interior was unharmed by the Heartless attack. As they ascended the stairs toward their room, Xion grimaced and thought back to Phil's question right before the fight, then reached down and pulled her shoes off. Oh that felt  _so_  much better.

"Can't fight in heels after all?" Roxas asked.

"I  _can_ , but I think I'd prefer not to." Xion grinned. "Maybe I was just used to it in the Organization and didn't realize what a pain it really was until I started wearing better shoes."

Roxas opened their room and let Xion walk in ahead of them. "Well, you really did look nice in them." He rubbed his neck while he shut the door behind him. "Hey, Xion."

"Hm?" Xion was already starting to lower the straps of her dress, but stopped and looked back at Roxas. He stood in front of the bathroom just about ready to go inside and change out of his suit, but he clearly wanted to say something first. "What is it?"

"Xion, Meg wasn't wrong. You  _are_  pretty, and don't you dare think otherwise. Okay?" Xion stared at him, almost not even registering what he had just said. Roxas's own words seem to catch up with him, and he quickly turned away and opened the bathroom door. "W-Well, goodnight!" He hurried inside and shut the door behind him.

Xion slipped out of the dress, but her thoughts were elsewhere; on Megara's words, and on Roxas's. She rested her hand on her chest, over her beating heart, and then looked up at her flushed face reflected back at her in the mirror. Was Roxas just saying things to be nice, or…? It wasn't something she had ever really thought about before, honestly. But then, she'd never really had a normal life before. And with the Organization behind her, it seemed that life had suddenly decided to start coming at her in force.

**x-x-x**

High atop a mountain peak, a cold stone cavern gave way to clouds and pearly gates. He looked in awe at the shift in environment before him, almost as if he had stepped into another world. Lauriam silently cracked open the gates to the Realm of the Gods, slipped inside, and then closed the gates behind him. If he was found here, he'd be dead. Deader than dead. But if Hades kept up his end of the bargain, then he was currently running a distraction back in Thebes so that the heroes would be none the wiser about this little intrusion on Olympus.

Swirling clouds of every shape and size decorated this place. They formed entire mountain ranges, including a towering peak with a temple on top that resembled a miniature of Mount Olympus. Something told Lauriam that was where Zeus lived, so he'd be avoiding it as best he could. But there was more to the clouds than just the terrain, even the buildings seemed to be made of them. Lauriam ran an inquisitive hand along a nearby pillar and watched as his hand passed through the seemingly solid surface, which wobbled almost like gelatin and broke apart into clouds. A moment after Lauriam left it alone, the clouds formed back into the pillar as if it had never broken in the first place.

If Hades was right, then what Lauriam was after was being kept in a hidden forge somewhere around here. It had been hidden on earth until recently, but then someone dug it up and left it lying around out in the open so Zeus had to find a new place to store it. Hades's bumbling minions had scouted out its new hiding spot, so now here under the cover of night Lauriam would be taking it. Stealing from gods… No pressure.

The Realm of the Gods was luckily rather quiet; it would seem that gods need sleep just as much as mortals did. Lauriam moved with equal parts haste and silence through the extravagant corridors and walkways, sticking to the shadows just in case. On occasion he would see a glowing guard on a flying chariot pass overhead, but they were always too far up above him to notice a former member of Organization XIII, the group that had turned remaining unnoticed behind the scenes into an art form.

He climbed stairs and traversed halls until he came to a wide aqueduct that fell into a pit with its depths hidden by clouds. A dead end? No – Hades had told Lauriam about this, had given him the precise location of the forge he was seeking. But here came the part where moving quietly would require finesse.

"What was that?"

Lauriam spun around, his heart skipped a beat.  _Damn._  A blue glow was coming down the hall behind him, heading right toward him. Had he been spotted? If even the most minor of gods found him and alerted Zeus, it would be all over. Thinking fast, Lauriam summoned his scythe and struck at the nearby wall. It broke apart into its composite clouds and he dived inside, then the clouds reformed behind him and closed up the hole he had torn open. Within the wall, Lauriam opened it again just enough to peer outside.

The god who had come down to reach him was a short and thin man with blue skin, flying through the air via a winged cap and winged sandals. He scratched his head under his hat. "Coulda sworn I saw someone. Maybe Hephaestus got up for a drink, I guess." The god turned around and flew back the way he had come, and after waiting a moment Lauriam broke free of the walls.

He peered down the deep pit where the aqueduct's water was falling. That had to be the way to the forge, unless Hades was lying. And then Lauriam grimaced; he very well could be. Lauriam didn't trust him for an instant, and wasn't even sure he really even knew what the Final World was. Hades could be playing him for a fool… "But any chance I have is one I have to take…"

Wind accentuated with a pink glow swirled around Lauriam and he leapt off the cliff. As he descended the waterfall gave way to a fine mist that joined with the clouds surrounding him, blocking the bottom of the pit from view. His swan dive was slowed down by the wind and he flipped around to land on his feet, just in time to land on a polished surface. A great heat was coming from up ahead.

A great flame roared in a furnace, an anvil sat in the middle of the floor, and many cauldrons of molten metal hung from chains on the ceiling. This had to be the forge, it could be no place else. In the corner of the room was another god fast asleep in his chair, a portly man with maroon skin and a red beard. If Lauriam had to guess, he was Hephaestus. And beside Hephaestus was a purple and black box with a white skull serving as a lock.

"So this is it," Lauriam whispered. He held his hand out and Hephaestus glowed a soft pink. A sleep spell, just to be safe. When the glow faded Lauriam slowly stepped forward and picked up the treasure with care. "Pandora's Box."

If even half of what Hades said was true, he didn't want to actually open this up any time soon. He'd hand it over and then Hades would hopefully hold up his end of the bargain. As for what became of this world… Sometimes sacrifices had to be made to save those you love.


	14. Put the "Glad" in Gladiator

The sun filtered through the curtains covering the hotel room's wall-sized window, and Xion sat up in her bed with a stretch and satisfied yawn. She looked over to the bed beside hers, where Roxas was entangled in his sheets and had all but fallen off, but was still sleeping soundly. If something good came of the sudden chaos from the night before, it was that the two of them had gotten a good night's rest, the best they'd had since this whole thing started. Moving silently so as not to wake Roxas (both to be nice and because she um, wasn't exactly fully dressed), Xion slipped out of bed and into the bathroom to start running the bath.

It was a large bath, the kind that's deep and takes up the majority of the bathroom – a far cry from the shower at their apartment, or heaven forbid the barracks-like ones in the Castle That Never Was. Xion took her sweet time relaxing in the warm water and almost fell asleep again before she started hearing conversations on the other side of the locked door. How long had she even been in here? She'd lost track of time and hadn't even thought about much, just had been glad to relax for once. After climbing out, drying off, and getting dressed, Xion walked out to see Roxas, still in his pajamas, sitting cross-legged on his bed with his phone in one hand and a pastry in the other.

"Yeah, we're kind of stuck here until we figure things out– Oh, morning Xion!"

"Morning," Xion replied as she sat down next to Roxas on his bed. She glanced down at the caller on the screen, and a bright smile broke onto her face. "Axel!"

Lea gave a salute and a smile to match Xion's own. "Hey there, kiddo. Roxas filled me in on everything. How are you holding up?"

Xion absentmindedly tugged at a strand of her damp hair as she spoke. "We're managing. I'm not sure exactly what we'll do, but we'll do something..." Xion trailed off as she thought back to their conversation last night, and what she had seen in the show chronicling Herc's adventures. They needed to get their hands on Hades's statues somehow.

"Hey, say the word and I'll be there in the blink of an eye. Isa can handle things here without me."

"What, you don't trust us?" Roxas asked through a mouth full of bread. He swallowed before continuing. "We've been cornered plenty of times before. We'll find our way out of this one."

Lea laughed. "Believe me, I know how good you two are. But I also know you're both stubborn. I don't want you getting in over your heads."

Roxas took another bite of his breakfast. "Axel, we have a literal  _god_  on our side!"

"Demigod, technically," Xion corrected. Then she frowned and looked at the pastry Roxas was eating. "Where did you even get that?"

"Room service came by while you were in the bath. He said it was complimentary with the room Phil got us. There's more over there." Roxas pointed over to a table across the room, where a plate with an impressive breakfast spread sat. Ooh, those eggs looked really good.

Xion slipped off the bed and started helping herself to some breakfast. She heard a growl from the Gummiphone, followed by Lea moaning. "You guys get fancy fixings and meanwhile I'm stuck with leftover pizza."

Roxas gasped in genuine offense. "You had pizza without us?!"

"And why are you complaining about that?" Xion asked from the table. "Pizza tastes best when it's reheated anyway. You're the one who taught us that."

"Because Isa ordered it so it was all vegetables. I need meat, man!"

The lighthearted conversation continued between the three friends for a while as Xion and Roxas finished breakfast, and then between just Lea and Xion as Roxas washed up and got dressed for the morning. By the time he was drying his hair and messing it back up, Lea was getting ready for work on the other end. Adjusting his uniform, Lea picked up his phone and stared dead into the camera, locking eyes with Roxas and Xion. "Seriously. Call me if you need me and I'll drop everything to fly over. I know you two can handle this but that doesn't mean I can't be there for you."

Roxas and Xion had twin expressions on their face, smiles a mix of happiness and sadness. "It really is nice of you to offer Axel, but we really can figure things out on our own," Roxas said in maybe the most serious and genuine tone of voice he'd had all morning.

"Besides, don't you need to get the rent money for this month ready?" Xion chimed in.

Lea rolled his eyes. "I wish the two of you hadn't grown up so quickly. Alright, I'll go to work. You kids stay safe, you hear me?"

"We've got it memorized, Axel. Talk to you soon." The screen went black and Roxas slipped his phone back into his pocket. He opened the door to their room and then turned to Xion. "Ready?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah."

Down the stairs and out the hotel, into the lively city of Thebes once again. The damage from the Heartless attack was extremely localized compared to the Titans' rampage before the two of them had arrived, and so while reconstruction wasn't finished yet it was further along in a shorter time. Meg and Phil had really rallied the Thebans quickly…probably mostly Meg, honestly. Roxas and Xion journeyed to the Coliseum where, after checking in at the front desk, they were shuffeled into a back room where many competitors of all shapes and sizes waited for the Games to begin. Some mingled with each other, some got in some finishing workouts, and others just sat around making mean faces at each other. In one corner of the room was a familiar trio, and Hercules's face lit up as he saw Roxas and Xion approach.

Herc stood up and brought his hands down on their shoulders. "Glad to see you kids again! You sleep well?"

"It was the best sleep we've had in a while," Xion affirmed. She turned to Phil. "And thanks for paying for the breakfast Phil, that was really good too."

Phil snorted a laugh and swiped a finger across his nose. "Hey, you kids have three full days ahead of you."

Xion tilted her head. "Three?"

Megara, sitting on the bench next to where Herc had been before he stood up, chuckled. "I guess this is your first Games, isn't it? They're not done in a day, they're spread out. There's too many fighters to get so many matches in one day."

"Oh…" That made sense, actually. But Xion wasn't sure they had the time to stick around in one world so long.

"Especially this time," Phil said while tugging at his beard. "Previous Games have had a bunch of Heartless teams get signed up by Hades under our nose. But for the Sora Cup we've got fighters from all over Greece, and some from even further out. Of course, the fights Herc's in will all wrap up real quick."

Roxas rested a hand on his hip. "And mine and Xion's too, right?"

Phil eyed Roxas up and down. "Eh, yeah, maybe. You seem a bit more of a stick than in your last Games though, rookie."

Roxas's face flushed. "Hey! You saw me fight last night just fine!"

Phil smirked and crossed his arms. "It's none of my business what you do in your downtime, but maybe you should buy a set of weights or something."

Herc laughed. "Phil, that's enough teasing him. And I'm sure the competition will be just as much of a challenge for me as for everyone else. We've got some nasty-looking faces this time around."

Roxas calmed down from his embarrassment and looked around the room. Xion joined him. There were people of all shapes, sizes, and colors here, from big burly men with horned helmets and axes to dark-skinned women with spears and masks. And who knew what fighting styles or magics they could employ? All Xion really knew was fighting Heartless and the Organization. Battling just for fun could be, well, fun!

There was just one problem, though. She looked back to Phil. "So are we going to go up against Herc right away? I'd rather we have more time to figure out a loophole before then."

Meg was the one who answered her question. "Phil made sure the two of you are in an entirely separate block from Hercules. That means that you won't be seeing him until the finals, which is where the two blocks meet. We have three days to figure out what to do about Hades's soulbinding."

Xion let out a breath. "That's a relief."

Fanfare blared then, coming from somewhere outside, encouraging music made to get the audience pumped. And pumped they were, because the fanfare was accompanied by cheers from thousands of people. Herc clapped his hand together and looked to Xion and Roxas. "That's our cue! Time for the opening ceremonies, come on."

Large stone doors opened on the far wall of the waiting room and sunlight poured in. Herc led the way with Roxas and Xion right behind him, and the rest of the competitors following after. They emerged into a large, circular arena with seats absolutely overflowing with attendees. They cheered, they jeered, and they cried for all of the fighters as they entered the Coliseum. And of course the loudest cheers were for Hercules, who waved both hands to the crowd as they held up signs and merchandise depicting Thebes's hero. Not everyone was as built for the limelight as him, though; Xion felt her stomach drop at the sight of all those people. What if she messed up? What if she embarrassed herself? What if– Roxas's hand found hers, and Xion looked over to him. His smile was strained and he was obviously just as nervous as her, but his touch calmed her nerves. Somewhat.

The competitors came to a stop in the center of the Coliseum but the roar of the crowd continued and wasn't quieted until a bright light flashed fell from the sky like a lightning bolt and landed in front of Hercules with an echoing crash. When the dust cleared from the impact, a blue-skinned woman whose very body glowed with a heavenly light greeted them.

An announcer's voice called out over the hushed Coliseum: "Presenting Athena: goddess of wisdom, skill, and battle strategy!"

A god! And actual honest-to-goodness  _god_  was only a few yards in front of them! Xion almost dropped to her knees, the only thing keeping her from doing so being that no one else was.

When Athena spoke, her voice resounded across the entire Coliseum as if she were using a microphone. "What is the measure of a true hero? It is not mere brute strength, or else my brother Ares would be standing here today, not I. What makes a hero is the desire to do what is right, to save those dear to you, and to protect those who cannot protect themselves." She gestured up to the sky. "Were it night, we would see three images in the stars above us: images of three heroes, one of whom has proven his strength of heart again and again in the service of our world and has so lent his name to these Games."

Athena turned from the crowd to the assembled competitors. "I wish for all who battle in the Games for the next three days keep the meaning of a hero in their minds during their matches. Conduct your battles with strategy and wisdom, not brute force, and show us all the heart of a hero that lies within." Then she turned back to the masses and raised her arms. "Ladies and gentlemen, Grecians and travelers alike, I bid you welcome to the Sora Cup!"

Applause rose up once again, not only from the crowds but from the combatants as well. Even Xion couldn't help but grin and clap; that was right, this was being held for Sora. She knew that but it hadn't even really hit her until that speech. This tournament wouldn't be happening without him; all these people were gathered here today because of him. He really was a hero, wasn't he?

Athena turned to Hercules and spoke quietly, so that her voice would not be heard by the entire Coliseum. "And on a personal level, know that your father and all of us on Olympus are waiting to see your victory."

Herc smiled. "It'd be nice, but let's not pretend it's a guaranteed thing."

Athena smiled. "And that attitude is why I've always liked you." With another flash of light she vanished, and the Sora Cup officially began.

The challengers were funneled back into the waiting room, but two were quickly called out for the first match: Hercules and a man with a bright red spear from somewhere far to the west of Greece. Herc opted for a sword, but it had nowhere near the reach of that spear, which his opponent demonstrated by constantly keeping him at bay; Herc was too far to attack, but the spearman kept cutting him with his weapon's razor edge. And the spearman had amazing reflexes too: if Herc tossed a rock or something at him, it would simply get swatted out of the air. But after this game of cat and mouse, Hercules came up with something that would finally work. To the crowd's confusion he bent his sword and tossed it, only for it to be avoided by the spearman…and then circle around back like a boomerang. As incredible as his reflexes were, he didn't have eyes in the back of his head. The flat of the sword knocked him out cold, and – as everyone expected – Hercules won the opening round of the Games.

Several more fighters came and went, and around noon Xion's first match came. Her opponent was a mountain of a man with a hammer as large as he was. Though Xion could easily outpace him his weapon swung wide and strong, and getting near wasn't an option. Luckily, spellcasting was a forte of hers. But when she called down a Thunder spell from the sky, the giant simply raised his hammer and its metal head called the lightning to it. With his weapon coursing with electricity he sent it flying toward Xion and it collided dead on, knocking her into the wall below the audience's seats. Without the hammer weighing him down the man moved faster than his size should have allowed, and moments before he reached Xion and his weapon Xion gripped onto the hilt of the hammer tightly.

Of course she couldn't even pretend to lift it, it was so much larger than she was. But she didn't need to – all Xion had to do was hold onto it for a bit. The man grabbed his hammer by the head and swung it around wildly, trying to get Xion to let go of the weapon. Her body was flung back and forth, this way and that, but her grip didn't falter. Eventually the man tossed his hammer back onto the ground and grabbed Xion around her waist, pulling her off of it himself. But he had taken too long, and Xion got what she needed. Bands of white nothingness circled around her arm and she thrust her hand into the sky. An exact replica of the giant's hammer appeared in the air, and he only had a fraction of a second to realize what he was seeing before it fell down and collided with his head. Xion broke out of the unconscious giant's grip and stood between two identical hammers as the astonished crowd caught up to what had happened and started cheering.

Hours and hours of fighting led to the final match of the first day, Roxas's. Fittingly enough his fight was against the backdrop of sunset, with the soft warm glow of torches lighting the Coliseum illuminating the field. His opponent was a man dressed in Spartan armor wielding – well how about that – two swords. Roxas and the soldier dashed at each other and the clang of metal rang out across the Coliseum. Slashes, dodges, jabs, and jumps followed as the two met each other almost blow for parries. Roxas grew frustrated at it quickly, and an explosion of light from his body sent the Spartan flying. Before he collided with the wall Roxas dashed behind him while aglow with light and then kicked him forward, knocking him to the floor in the center of the Coliseum.

The man recovered in time to block both of Roxas's Keyblades as they came down on him from above, and then replied with a kick of his own to Roxas's gut. But when Roxas was sent skyward, he hung there in midair instead of falling down. Roxas held his Keyblades together and then backflipped and held them out to his sides, and pillars of light began to rain down on the Coliseum. There was nothing the Spartan could do to counter, so all he could do was run and try to avoid Magic Hour. He didn't. One of the blue-white beams of light hit him dead on and he lost his grip on both swords. Roxas responded by dropping to the ground and performing a cross-slash across the soldier's chest, leaving visible marks on his armor. He collapsed in a heap while muttering that he surrendered.

**x-x-x**

And on and on the fights continued. Into the second day, and then past that. Roxas and Xion quickly became the crowd favorites, or at least second place behind Hercules. And on the second night as Xion soaked in the bath at their hotel room, she had to admit that despite the situation that put them here it was nice to put smiles on so many peoples' faces. To be wanted and valued for something by thousands was definitely an experience she would never forget. But there was a problem with all this progress, too.

Xion lowered her face further into the water and blew out frustrated bubbles. They were growing closer and closer to the finals, which meant closer and closer to the match with Hercules. And they needed to find a way out of their soulbinding deal with Hades before that happened. They just had until tomorrow night… Well, maybe if she took it one step at a time. The two of them had fights scheduled for the morning, and then the semifinals were after that.

…Wait.  _Oh, no_.

Frantically Xion climbed out of the bath, not caring if she splashed water everywhere. She grabbed a towel and slammed the door open. "Roxas!"

Roxas nearly choked on the sandwich he was eating. He dropped his plate and threw his hands over his eyes. "Xion, put some clothes on!"

"Shut up, I have a towel. Listen!" She hurried over to a large paper on the wall that the two had made on the first night of the Games, one which charted out the tournament. Xion found her marker quickly and then ran her finger along the sheet until she found Roxas.  _I knew it_.

"What is it?" Roxas finally got up and joined her side, his face still beet red.

"Look at the tree. If the two of us win our first matches tomorrow then we'll be facing each other in the semifinals."

Roxas's gaze moved from Xion to the sheet as he examined the spots she pointed to. His face fell, his expression one of disappointment. "Wait, you're right. But Xion, I don't want to hurt you."

Xion nervously bit at the nail of her thumb. They  _would_  hurt each other if this fight happened. More than one of the competitors had been taken away unconscious, after all. "Yeah, me neither. But you heard Phil on the night of the show, we can't just refuse to fight, because of Hades."

A grimace coated Roxas's features. "If only we could break those statues…"

Yeah, if only. Xion continued chewing at her nail in thought and looked outside, at the thousands of torchlights decorating Thebes like stars. Her mind kept going back to a plan she'd suggested the night of the Heartless attack. Herc had shot it down, but… "I'll find them at Hades's base."

Roxas jumped and stared at her with eyes wide as dinner plates. " _What_?"

Xion placed her hands on her hips. "I said I–"

"I thought I heard wrong, and now I wish I had! Xion, Hades is keeping them in the Underworld! You know, his  _home base_? And there's no way he'd leave them just sitting out in the open either!"

"What choice do we have? It's been three days and it's the only thing that any of us have come up with. Besides, you remember the show: it's what Sora did when Auron was in trouble!"

"It's exactly because that was done before that Hades would know to guard better!" Roxas's voice was rising, which made Xion a bit angry. Where did he get off trying to tell her to back down? This was the right thing to do!

"I'm not arguing this with you, Roxas. I'm doing it. I'll sneak through like we did Maleficent's castle, and I'll be out before Hades even realizes I'm there."

Roxas groaned and rubbed his temples. "I'm pretty sure Hades is more competent than Maleficent's goons, Xion!"

"It's what Sora would do!" Xion shouted. Roxas froze, and so did she; even she herself hadn't expected that volume out of her. Her shoulders slumped and then she hugged herself, feeling the damp towel beneath her arms. "He wouldn't even hesitate, and you know he wouldn't. Even if it meant getting hurt, he could handle it. And so can I."

Several tense moments passed between them without a world. Roxas rested a hand over his chest, feeling his heartbeat. After several more seconds, he let out a quiet sigh. "…Okay. You're right." Roxas glanced outside their window, up at a constellation sparkling in the night sky. "So what's the plan?"

Xion smiled, truly thankful. "I'll go to the Underworld right after my first match, during yours. That way neither of us will miss a fight and go against Hades's binds. And I'll be break the statues before we or Herc have to fight each other."

Roxas nodded as she spoke. He glanced at the tournament tree hanging on their wall, looked thoughtful for a few moments, and then smiled. "Alright, if that's the plan then I'm for it too." Then a pause. His eyes flickered below her face for the briefest of brief moments, and then he turned away quickly. "Now  _please_  put some clothes on."

**x-x-x**

And so night passed and the final day of the Games began. Xion and Roxas returned to the Coliseum and greeted Herc, Meg, and Phil, but didn't let on the plan. Xion knew they'd try to stop her, but she didn't have it in her to have another argument about this.

Her match leading to the semifinals was against a muscular woman wielding a spiked ball and chain. Once again her opponent wielded a weapon that made getting in range difficult, but this time magic wasn't a liability. With some Fire and Thunder spells, Xion cleared the battle and secured her place in the semifinals. She didn't get away without a few cuts and bruises, though.

In the waiting room, Phil was standing on a stool so he could clasp his hand on Roxas's shoulder. "Alright kid, your next match was the chick who won the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. She's even faster than you are and fights with a bow and arrows, so you're gonna need to come up with a new tactic than just zipping around."

"Any suggestions?"

"Unless you got some apples on you, no."

"Apples…?" But Phil had already run off to speak to Herc, leaving Roxas nothing but confused. Xion returned from the arena then though, so tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. Roxas spared one look at her, standing in the back of the room with her hood up, and grimaced. "You're sure about this?"

"We went over this last night already. We don't have much else choice."

"I know. Just…be careful, alright?"

Xion smiled. "You too. Win this fight, and I'll break the statues before the two of us have to fight. I'll be back before you know it." The announcer called Roxas and his opponent's names, and Xion and Roxas cast one last glance at each other before Xion pulled her hood further over her head and hurried outside before she would be seen.

Would getting into the Underworld be a problem? No, because she already knew a way in. After all, they had seen a play showing their friends' previous adventures here. Though most of the Coliseum had been destroyed by the Hydra and then rebuilt, some of the original still stood. Even if the old courtyard wasn't used anymore it was still around, and on the far end were the large double doors sealed tight with a lock and chain to keep the common folk from wandering inside. But no lock could stop a Keyblade wielder.

Sign of Innocence fired its beam and the seal vanished. The doors slowly swung open to reveal a glowing staircase leading downward into the darkness. Xion took a breath to brace herself, heard the cheer of the crowd behind her as Roxas's fight began, and then continued her run into the Underworld. She was on the clock.

The atmosphere in the Underworld reminded her of the corridors of darkness by an uncomfortably high amount. It was as if the air itself was pressing down on her, weighing her body down. She felt incredibly heavy, like just moving her limbs was a struggle. Every color was duller, every sound was more muffled, and everything was so very cold. Xion rubbed her arms and watched as her breaths came out as faint mists. In the distance she could hear the constant sound of echoing screams, so faint that Xion wasn't sure if she was imagining them or if they were really there. She hoped it was the former.

She stepped off of the staircase to emerge in a vast, dark cavern. In front of Xion was a black river, with a brightly lit coliseum across it in the distance. To either side of her were roads leading to two large stone doors, one blue and one green. Well wasn't this just great? Sure she had seen a play about this, but it was just a play, they didn't go into details like what doors Sora had entered. It was a coin toss then, which door to choose?  _Eeny meeny miny moe…_

Choosing the blue door, Xion made her way deeper into the network of tunnels and caves. A grey mist soon began to coat the floor, rising up to her ankles. As she ran further through the Underworld the temperature seemed to drop more and more, and the air grew damper as well. Xion found herself stopping to zip up her jacket to grab any warmth she could find. The mist at her feet was flowing forward like a river, and perhaps against her better judgment Xion followed it through the maze of tunnels, the only source of light coming from the occasional blue torch. She was so cold…

But then, a burst of heat. Xion threw up her hands and took several hasty steps back, back into the tunnel she had just emerged out of. What was  _that_? Pausing for a moment to let her heart calm back down, she slowly peered back outside into the chamber she had entered. A stone bridge zig-zagged across a glowing green pit, and in contrast to the cold dampness of the rest of the Underworld, this place was like a furnace. Xion cautiously stepped outside and unzipped her jacket again, letting her body adjust more slowly than it had a moment before. Already she could feel sweat trickling down her neck and matting her hair to her face.

The mist had lifted from the floor and now faintly swirled around the large cavern. Xion avoided watching it, hopeful that those pained faces she thought she saw in the mist were just her mind playing tricks on her. Ahead of her, towering over this cavern, was a building formed of the same grey stone as the rest of the Underworld, carved into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a skull. If she were a betting girl, that would be Hades's throne room. She hoped so, anyway. She definitely didn't want to end up having gone the wrong way and needing to see more of this place.

She ran across the stone bridge as quickly as she could, even if her arms and legs felt like they were tied down by weights. What was up with this place? The sooner she left the Underworld, the better. When she crossed through the door at the far end and found another staircase, the temperature suddenly dropped to bone-chilling levels once again. And with the sweat formed from the last room, she felt even colder now. Shivering and zipping up her jacket again, Xion hurried upstairs.

"Thank goodness!" Xion cried in relief at the sight at the top of the stairs, and then leaned against the wall to rest. Yes, she had chosen the right door to take back at the beginning after all. In front of her was a large round table, atop which sat two familiar statues. Xion couldn't hide her smile as she approached the table, pushing aside the small purple box in her way and grabbing Roxas's statue.

_You earned the icing on the cake._

_How could he? How could that jerk attack you like that?_

_I am me! Nobody else!_

_Looks like my summer vacation is…over._

_Hands off my friends._

She grasped her head and the statue clattered to the ground. "What was  _that_?" Some of the voices she heard were familiar… Roxas's memories? Well, no matter. Xion summoned her Keyblade, held it in both hands, and pointed it down toward the statue on the floor. When the beam of light from her Keyblade made contact with the statue it exploded into sparkles of pink and gold that lifted into the sky and faded away. Hopefully that did it.

"So next…" Xion reached for her statue…but it wasn't there.

"Looking for something?"

Xion's heart leaped and stomach fell. She whirled around with her Keyblade ready to find herself face to face with Hades, his arms crossed and her statue held tight in his bony fingers. "Hand that over to me!"

"Hand it over? What? It's my property, kid." Hades glanced at the spot on the ground where Roxas's statue had been. "You know, you could be charged with destruction of private property."

"I don't belong to you!" Xion dashed forward and swung at Hades with all her might, both hands gripping the Keyblade tightly…and she passed right through him like he wasn't even there. "What?" Xion looked at him in shock but quickly collected herself and launched a volley of Water spells. They, too, phased through Hades's form harmlessly. Xion's grip weakened on her weapon, and her arms felt heavy. What was going on?

Hades let out a dark laugh. "What? Don't tell me, was this little detail not in that stage show either? Kid, it's simple. In the Underworld, heroes are zeroes! Comes with the territory."

A fireball knocked Xion against the wall and sent her Keyblade flying across the room. To her credit Xion quickly climbed up to her feet, but before she could call her weapon back into her hands her body froze up. A glow was coating her entire figure, and an identical glow was emanating from her statue in Hades's hand. "Hades!"

"Like I said, these little figurines are my property, my little blackbird. And if you're going to come and break my stuff, well…" He grinned wickedly, showing his sharp teeth, and then squeezed the glowing statue tightly. "Let the punishment fit the crime."

Xion fell to her knees and gripped her head as it throbbed again and again. Her body was being pressed down to the floor by an invisible force, her breathing was growing erratic, and her moans of pain were turning into cries. She could feel something, something familiar…and horrifying. Her mind was…slipping. Fading… Xion shook her head wildly as her nails dug into her skin, desperate to stop what she knew was happening. The cold, icy fingers of fear gripped tightly at her heart. No… Not again…

Hades's voice was distant. "Something tells me you're familiar with puppets."

Not…again…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next were originally one, but since this chapter ended up longer than I anticipated I decided to split them up.
> 
> Several (though not all) of the fighters in the Games were cameos from another series I'm a big fan of, Fate. As long as we were in a mythological setting with Olympus I couldn't resist. Hercules fought Cu Chulainn, Xion's second opponent was Penthesilea, and Roxas's second opponent was Atalanta.


	15. Hero to Zero

The roar of the crowd had become a familiar sound to Roxas over the last few days, and even kind of welcoming. He and Xion had spoken before about how it was nice to feel appreciated by their fans – gosh, they had fans now! It was such a surreal thing to even think about, but they had absolutely made a name for themselves over the course of the Games. Even if they had been forced into this situation against their will, at least it wasn't all bad.

Though at this precise moment, Roxas was definitely  _not_  having a good time.

Roxas held up both Keyblades as he protected himself from a literal rain of glowing green arrows. His opponent in the match before the semifinals was an archer woman who, as Phil had warned him, was even faster on her feet than Roxas himself was. And she apparently had magic to back up her archery, because by firing just one arrow into the sky she had caused a torrent of magical arrows to rain down upon him. The good news was that Xigbar had a similar attack and Roxas had sparred with him once or twice in the old days; the bad news was that he had never found a way to counter it, just to defend.

Even when the barrage had ended and you'd think Roxas would be free to charge in Keyblades swinging, he wasn't. The huntress fired volley after volley of arrows, keeping Roxas at a distance and keeping her away from his attacks. Not that Roxas didn't have ways to fight at range either, but… Well, the truth was he was kind of trying to prolong the fight. The longer this took, the more time Xion had to destroy their statues and free them from Hades. But he couldn't very well disappoint the crowd by just standing idly by, either.

Roxas spun his Keyblades out in front of him, sending spiraling bursts of blue and gold light out at his opponent. She avoided them by leaping high, high into the sky, showing off more of that remarkable agility. But by taking the time to avoid one hit, she left herself open to another. Roxas jumped up to meet her, she swerved in midair to dodge Oathkeeper, but then Oblivion knocked into her side. The huntress was sent hurtling to the ground, though righted herself and landed on her feet. Roxas followed soon after, charging toward her as she readied another arrow–

Roxas stumbled. His entire body went numb for a brief moment, throwing his balance off. He toppled forward and face-planted on the ground, his Keyblades clattering at his sides. But the numbness vanished as quickly as it had come, and when it cleared away he felt…good. He felt lighter than he had in days, like a weight had been lifted from him.

"Xion…" he breathed her name as he climbed back up to his feet and called his Keyblades back into his hands. She must have done it, she broke Hades's soulbinding.

Well then, time to wrap things up here.

The huntress took off in a dash as Roxas pursued her. She turned and shot arrows without missing a step, keeping him out of melee range. Roxas pointed Oathkeeper forward and shot a bullet of light out at her, striking her in the wrist as she knocked another arrow. Her bow went flying. Her head whipped back and forth as she looked from her weapon to Roxas, who had quickly gained on her, she swiftly grabbed an arrow and jabbed it into his leg. But though Roxas cried out, he kept through the pain and brought his Keyblades on the huntress, knocking her into the wall and out for the count. The crowd cheered as Oathkeeper and Oblivion vanished from Roxas's grasp, and he held up a hand to them while medics came to retrieve his unconscious opponent. She'd be okay, even if she'd have a heck of a headache when she woke up.

Back in the waiting room, Roxas fell back in a seat against the far wall and muffled his pained shout as Phil pulled out the arrow from his leg. "That was pretty great rookie. So you're all set up for the semifinals now."

"Yeah." A soft green glow enveloped Roxas's hand and he held it over his leg as Cure mended the wound. He'd still be sore there, but at least it wouldn't be open.

Phil tossed the arrow into a nearby bin and then looked around at the room. It was emptier now, with just a few competitors who still lingered after their matches were over. "Speaking of which, where is Xion?"

Roxas glanced aside. "Not sure."

"Kid…" He wasn't looking at Phil, but he could  _hear_  the crossed arms in his voice.

"Phil I don't need to babysit her." Two hands clamped down on Roxas's cheeks and he was forcefully turned to look Phil in the eyes. Phil leaned forward dangerously close, until Roxas could smell his breath. Smelled like grass, ew.

"You're a terrible liar, and it's making me suspicious. Roxas, where did she run off to?"

Roxas winced again; not in pain this time, but at Phil's' words. Was he really that obvious? Roxas hesitated, but maybe it was better to just rip the bandage off. "…The Underworld. To break the statues."

"WHAT?!" Phil's shout turned heads and practically shook the room. Phil glaring daggers turned them away, and then he grabbed Roxas by the wrist and pulled him into a side room. Once the door had slammed shut behind them, Phil started shouting again. "The  _Underworld_?! That's insane! She can't fight down there without the Olympus Stone! Kid, that's unbelievably dangerous!"

Yeah, well, Roxas had known it was dangerous, but something Phil said caused a pit to form in his stomach. "What do you mean she can't fight?"

Phil stared at Roxas incredulously. He turned around and rubbed his temples while muttering to himself. "I'm too old for this… Okay. Listen! The Underworld is Hades's home turf. It's as evil as he is. For good guys like you and Xion, and even Herc, you're completely powerless in there without something called the Olympus Stone."

"What?!" Roxas grabbed Phil's shoulders. "I didn't– We had no idea! Phil, how were we supposed to know that?!"

"It didn't come up because I thought you'd be smarter than to even try a stunt like this! Oh, kid…" Phil pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "What were the two of you thinking?"

Grimacing and rubbing his arm, Roxas looked to the side. "I tried to stop her at first, but she said…it's what Sora would have done…"

Phil's shoulders fell. "Yeah, it probably is. But that doesn't make it any less stupid, Roxas! I gotta tell Herc, we gotta get the Olympus Stone from Zeus." Phil swung open the door to the waiting room…and he and Roxas were face to face with Xion.

"Wha?" Phil stared at her, and she stared back at him. Her hood was up, but she didn't seem injured at all. "Xion?!"

"Xion!" Roxas ran past Phil, accidentally shoving him aside, and took Xion's hands in his own. "I felt you destroy the statues. I'm so glad you're okay! See, Phil? She's fine!"

Phil rubbed his head and looked Xion up and down with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, yeah. Looks like. Well, just in time I guess. The match starts soon, yeah?"

Roxas shook his head. "No, we don't have to worry about that! If we're free from Hades now then we can just drop out. Come on Xion, let's go to the front desk–"

"No, I'd like to fight." Xion cut him off quickly. She tilted her head up to look at Roxas from beneath her hood, her lips turned up in the slightest of smiles.

"What? Xion, the whole point of going to the Underworld was to avoid this." But Xion slipped out of his grip and made her way toward the door to the ring. What was up with her?

Phil stepped up beside Roxas and tugged at his beard. "Well as long as you're not being forced into it, I guess I don't see the harm. You?"

Roxas stared off after Xion. "I…guess…?"

"Then let's get out there, rookie. Come on, your public awaits."

Back out into the ring it was, then. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky a beautiful shade of orange. Applause and shouts rose up around them as two of the crowd favorites got into their places on opposite sides of the ring. Xion's hood was still up and her Keyblade was at her side. Roxas scratched the back of his head, still confused. She'd barely said a word.

"Hey, Xion," he called over to her as they got ready. "Are you sure you're okay–" The bell rang to signal the start of the match, and Xion dashed toward him with such startling speed that Roxas barely had time to get Oathkeeper out to block her attack. Her Keyblade pressed down on his and he fought to keep her from breaking his footing from the pressure. "What's gotten into you, Xion? I felt you break the statues! You know we don't need to do this anymore, at least not so seriously!"

Oblivion manifested and Roxas swung at Xion, albeit reluctantly. Xion jumped back and replaced her Keyblade with the familiar sight of Lea's chakrams. The replicated weapons lit aflame and she tossed them at Roxas, twin wheels of fire hurtling toward him at full speed. Of course he had seen Axel fight enough, and even fought him enough himself, to know how to deal with those. Roxas knocked the chakrams aside with ease, only to find that they were a distraction – while he had focused on them, Xion tossed a bolt of yellow straight at him. Roxas barely had time to pivot out of the way as one of Larxene's knives passed inches past his throat. It suck into the far wall and then exploded in a burst of electricity.

Roxas stared at the wall in wide-eyed shock. Wordlessly, his hand flew to his throat, his fingers brushing his skin. That hadn't been an accident, Xion had known what she was aiming for. He whirled around again just in time to block an attempted surprise attack from his hooded friend. "Xion, what is  _wrong_  with you?!"

They struggled against each other once more, and Xion continued not to say a word. She thrust one hand into Roxas's gut and cast Fire, knocking Roxas back with a point-blank explosion. His cries were more of shock than pain, and even then there was still a fair bit of pain. Needless to say, Xion was acting very uncharacteristically. But there was one other time that Roxas could remember her acting similar to this, and–

No time to think! Xion charged at him again, and once again they locked blades and struggled to push the other away. What was Roxas supposed to do? He didn't want to hurt Xion, but he didn't exactly want to be hurt himself, either. When Xion's Keyblade transformed in a flash into Isa's claymore, Roxas suddenly found that he couldn't hold back the weapon any longer. Xion broke through his defense, but Roxas rolled aside just as the Claymore came crashing down and cracked the stone floor of the stadium. That could have been his head! He had to find a way to restrain her and figure out what was going on.

"I'm sorry about this, Xion!" Roxas pointed Oathkeeper forward and shot a bolt of Blizzard out from the tip. The ice froze her feet to the ground…only to be shattered and melted by a swing of Lea's burning chakrams which then quickly swapped back to Isa's claymore. Roxas dodged again as she charged at him and swung. This time the impact of her weapon sent out an expanding ring of blue flame and Roxas took to the air, leaping high to avoid it. Xion ran at top speed after him, continuing to slam the claymore around and release more flames.

**x-x-x**

On the sidelines, Phil watched the battle with concern. Xion was uncharacteristically relentless in her attack, and Roxas was obviously seeing something wrong as he kept calling out to her. She'd been in the underworld, huh…? Roxas said he had felt their statues break, but the way Xion was acting sure did make Phil suspicious.

"Oh, the semifinals have started?"

Herc and Meg stepped out into the twilight, stopping beside Phil to watch the battle. Herc rubbed his chin. "Wow, Xion sure is giving it her all despite being forced to fight her friend."

"That's the thing, she's not," Phil replied. He tugged on his beard. "The kid said she  _wanted_  to fight Roxas, once she got back."

Meg crossed her arms and spoke to Phil without taking her eyes off the match. "Back from where?"

Phil sighed and shook his head. He slowly pulled his eyes away from the match to look up at Herc. "Would you believe the  _Underworld_ , apparently?"

"What?!" Herc and Meg both turned to Phil, forgetting the fight completely. "Phil, pull the other one!"

"Trust me, I  _wish_  I was just joking. But that's what Roxas said. Those two nimrods came up with a stupid plan to break Hades's control over 'em; Roxas says he felt their statues break, but then Xion showed up acting all weird and insisting that she wanted to have their fight anyway."

"Those idiots…" Meg muttered. "Then you realize what happened, don't you?"

Herc grimaced. "Yeah, I thought this looked familiar. This fight, the way Xion is moving, how she's dead silent, it's all reminding me of my own match with Auron. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out." He looked back down at Phil. "Phil, we need to intervene! This match has to stop before Roxas gets killed!"

"I'm with you, champ, but I don't think a referee's whistle is going to get Hades to stop."

Herc stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders. "Then I guess I'll be taking things into my own hands."

"Oh will you, now?"

Hercules whirled around and forcefully ran in front of Meg and Phil as a puff of black smoke appeared in the doorway. Hades appeared with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. In his hands was a familiar figurine, one that confirmed their worst fears.

"What do you want now, Hades?" Herc asked. "Leave these kids out of our back and forth!"

Bearing his teeth with a grin, Hades held the statue up and gestured toward Roxas and Xion as they continued their one-sided fight. "The little blackbird has quite an arsenal of weapons, if you haven't noticed. It might be just as dangerous for her well-being as it is for her enemies'."

Meg grit her teeth and stepped forward, only being stopped when Herc put a hand in front of her. Even then, she still glared daggers at Hades. "If you harm one hair on her head–"

"Me?  _I_  won't be hurting anyone. Come on, don't you think better of me than that? After all we've been through?" Hades let out a dark chuckle and held up the statue to demonstrate it to them. "No, not me. But if you try to do anything to stop the fight between those Keyblade kiddos, well, I'll just give Xion the order to turn her Keyblade on herself, and..." He traced one of his bony fingers across the figurine's neck. "It'll be done in an instant."

Herc felt the blood drain from his face. He wouldn't… That was coldblooded, even for Hades. "You're bluffing."

"I don't make empty promises, Wonderboy. Xion is going to win this fight and then take you out, and if you try to stop it, then her blood is on your hands."

**x-x-x**

Roxas quickly leaned back, narrowly avoiding being sliced clean in two by Marluxia's scythe. He wasn't stupid, he had realized what was going on here. After all, there was one other time that he could remember Xion acting like this. Like an empty puppet, bereft of control over her body. His heart ached at those memories seen through Sora's eyes, of his best friends fighting each other among the ruins. But he had freed her at the Keyblade Graveyard, and he'd free her again here. She just had to be stopped first, before one or both of them were seriously hurt.

The next time Xion's Keyblade came down, Roxas didn't block it. He grabbed the weapon in his hand and held tight even when she tried to pull it away. "Don't do this."

Beneath the shadow of her hood, Roxas could see Xion's mouth form into a snarl. She grit her teeth and, while still trying to pull her Keyblade out of Roxas's grasp, thrust her free hand out to her side. White strands of nothingness began to spiral down her arm and coalesce in her palm; she was replicating another weapon. Roxas called Oblivion into his own free hand and held it to Xion's neck just as Dark Riku's Soul Eater was pressed to his. But unlike Roxas, Xion wasn't bluffing. The razor edge of that bat wing-shaped blade brushed against his skin, gently, but enough to draw a trickle of blood.

Quickly, Roxas struck at her wrist with Oblivion, causing her to drop Soul Eater. As it faded back into nothingness, he took advantage of Xion's momentary surprise to tug her Keyblade out of her grasp then took hold of its hilt. With Sign of Innocence and Oblivion both held by Roxas, Xion once again called on Lea's chakrams. She tossed one at Roxas while dashing at him with the other, spinning like a dancer to strike him multiple times with the circular weapon. When the second chakram returned to her hand Xion slammed both of them onto the ground and conjured a pillar of fire that erupted out at Roxas's feet, scorching his body and sending him flying.

Roxas righted himself in the air and once more shot Blizzard spells at Xion's feet. When she attempted to strike them with her chakrams, Roxas darted at her before she had the chance and slipped both Keyblades through the holes in her weapons. He tugged them away from Xion, dismissed the Keyblades, and tossed the weapons aside where they then faded away. Before Xion could replicate another pair he grabbed both her wrists and pinned her arms behind her back.

Xion struggled against his grip, but Roxas held fast. "It's all right! You can stop now! It's all right, Xion!" He was being very purposeful in his word choice; if this had worked before, it could work again. Xion's struggling did slow, but it didn't cease. Careful not to release his hold on her wrists, Roxas looked back over his shoulder. "Hey Phil–"

His breath caught in his throat. Hercules and Megara had joined Phil on the sidelines, but they weren't alone.  _Hades_. His eyes locked on the object in the god's hand – Xion's statue. He knew for a fact he had felt her break his, but apparently she had been caught then. Roxas's heart fell, and his grip loosened ever so slightly.

"This is all my fault…" He was the reason that Hades captured her. He should have done something. He should have been more insistent that Xion not go to the Underworld. Oh, God, why did he give in so easily when she brought up Sora?

…No. This wasn't his fault. He let her go because he had faith in her. The person to blame was standing there with a wicked grin on his vile face.

"HADES!" Roxas let go of Xion and dashed toward the god, Oathkeeper and Sign of Innocence flashing into his hands as he moved. He leaped off the ground and crossed his Keyblades together, ready to chop Hades's head off, but his attack was intercepted by a massive blue and silver sword. Xion, still under Hades's control, protected him from Roxas as once more Keyblades clashed against claymore.

"Kid, look out!"

Phil's warning came too late for Roxas to take heed of it. With a dismissive flick of his fingers, Hades sent a massive fireball the Keybladers' way. Xion jumped away just in time, leaving Roxas to take the full impact, and before he had recovered she jumped right back into the fight and slammed the claymore hard against his side.

"Xion, stop!" Roxas shouted, shooting bullets of light out the tip of his Keyblade toward Hades. Xion intercepted them again, now aglow with a vile pink aura that mimicked the one that had grown around the statue.

Hades chuckled, and when Hercules tried to punch him from behind he vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared a few feet away. "What did I tell you about interfering, Blunderboy?" He gripped the statue tighter, and the glow shifted from pink to black as it overflowed with the power of darkness.

The aura around Xion did the same. She grabbed her forehead and wobbled for a moment as if she were dizzy, and then when she regained her footing she swapped the claymore for Soul Eater.

Panic clear in her voice, Meg called out over the battlefield. "Roxas! Keep those weapons out of Xion's hands, Hades is going to make her kill herself!"

" _What_?!" Roxas felt himself chill to the bone, and he saw Xion bring the sword up to her neck. Mentally apologizing to her, he fired a bolt of light from the tip of Sign of Innocence and hit her wrist dead-on, knocking Soul Eater out of her hands. But she simply replicated another copy of it and started trying again. "Herc, get the statue!"

"I'm on it!" As Roxas grappled with Xion, desperately trying to keep her hands away from herself, Hercules tackled Hades only for Hades to teleport a few yards away again. When Herc tried a second time, Hades simply teleported once more.

"Jerkules, please, who do you think you're dealing with?"

"Who do  _you_  think  _you're_  dealing with?!" Phil shouted as he delivered a powerful headbutt to Hades's legs. Hades winced in pain and doubled over, giving Herc the opportunity to deliver a powerful punch that caved the wicked god's face in. He screamed in a mixture of rage and pain, and while he was distracted Megara snagged the statue from him.

"Roxas!" With all her might, Meg tossed the statue into the battlefield.

"NO!" Hades screeched.

Roxas gripped Xion's wrist so tightly that if she were in her right state of mind she'd probably cry out in pain, but it was a necessary precaution: the tip of Soul Eater was only inches from being thrust in her chest. Her puppeted hand tried to bring it down and finish the job, but Roxas wasn't letting up. And he heard the others' success and Hades's frustration just in time to reach up and grab the statue from the air.

_Roxas…is your name._

_So, do you hate me for taking your friend away from you?_

_This is the place I come from. I just know it._

_You're both my best friends. Never forget. That's the truth._

Xion's memories surged through Roxas's head and he fought through the pain. Jerking Xion's hand back away from her chest, he directed it and her weapon down onto the statue. The figurine and Soul Eater both exploded into bursts of darkness upon contact with each other, and then sparks of light flew out from the remains and into Xion. Immediately Xion stopped struggling, but it was replaced instead by a horrific scream that brought the entire Coliseum into dead silence.

Xion grasped at her head and screamed in fear and pain, and then collapsed to her knees as the screams gave way to choking sobs. She sat there in the middle of the Coliseum, shaking, sobbing, her arms wrapped so, so tightly around her. Roxas didn't even hesitate; he immediately dropped down beside her and wrapped her in a hug. But that didn't stop her crying. How could it? Her greatest nightmare had been brought back to the forefront. Her body had been stolen from her; once again she had been used like a puppet.

"It's okay, it's okay…" Roxas whispered as he tightened his hug. She kept crying, her breaths heavy.

On the sidelines, Hades raged. He clawed at his face and spouted furious gibberish as his skin and flaming hair shifted from blue to red-hot. "Blast! Blast it all! Rrgh…" His skin shifted back as his temper cooled down, or at least bubbled beneath the surface. He was still clearly furious. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. The key kids killing Jerkules was just icing on the cake. I've got an actual plan coming down the pipeline."

Hercules scoffed. "What could you have that we can't stop at this point, Hades?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? See you tonight, losers!" In a plume of smoke and fire, Hades disappeared with mocking laughter.

That was certainly ominous, but Roxas couldn't bring himself to care. Even now, Xion still hadn't stopped crying. He gently rocked her as he held her tighter, but nothing was helping. She hadn't even said a word yet. It wasn't until Meg put a gentle hand on his shoulder that Roxas even looked up from Xion.

"Why don't you go get some rest?" Meg asked. "Both of you." She handed him a handkerchief, and only then did Roxas realize he was crying too. He took it with quiet thanks and dabbed at his tear-stained cheeks.

"I'll take Xion back to our hotel. But we're not leaving town. If Hades is up to something, I'm going to help you stop him. And Xion will want to too, I'm sure."

"Whatever you want," Meg replied with a warming smile. "But for now, rest. Xion will be okay, Roxas. Something tells me she's a strong young woman."

Roxas looked back to Xion and gently ran a hand on her cheek. She didn't even react. "Yeah… She is."

**x-x-x**

The walk back to their hotel was slow, and silent save for the soft sounds of Xion's crying. That hadn't let up even if it had eased up, and though she was aware enough now to walk she still hadn't spoken a word. Xion sat on the bed with her legs curled in and her arms hugging her knees, while Roxas stood on the balcony and leaned on the railing. His Gummiphone was in his hand, its empty screen taunting him. He had to call Lea, he deserved to know what happened, but Roxas didn't want to go through that conversation… Not when he was the reason it happened.

"Some hero I am. What a joke," Roxas said with a grim, self-deprecating chuckle. He looked up at the stars, all bright and twinkling like nothing was wrong, and his eyes fell on a certain constellation. "You always were the better of us, weren't you, Sora? That's why you were the one everyone counted on, not me. You wouldn't have let this happen to her – to anyone. Not like I did…" He sighed and stared down at the city below. "I'm a terrible friend."

"That's not true." Roxas jumped and whirled around to see Xion standing in the doorway. She rubbed at her red, puffy, eyes and sniffled a little bit, but she wasn't actively crying anymore.

"Xion, are you okay?" Roxas took a few steps toward her, and then she quickly closed the rest of the distance and tossed her arms around him.

"Roxas, you're not a terrible friend. You're a  _great_ friend. The best I could ever ask for. I don't deserve you."

"Now who's telling lies?" Roxas pulled away so he could look Xion in the eye. He brushed some of her hair out of her face. "Xion, you deserve the world. Why would you ever think otherwise?"

Xion averted her eyes and gnawed on her lower lip. "Because I'm weak. I'm useless." Tears started to well in her eyes again, and she sniffled as Roxas gently wiped them away. "I messed up. I got captured, and I fought you, and– and– Oh, God, Roxas, it was the Keyblade Graveyard all over again. I couldn't control myself, my heart was being swallowed by darkness again, my body w-wouldn't listen to me… I'm a failure, I'm a mistake! I… I…"

Before she could break down again, Roxas once more pulled her into a tight hug. He pressed his hand against the back of her head and let her cry into his shoulder. "You're not weak, Xion. You're not useless. You're not a mistake. You're the strongest person I know! Who else could go through everything you've been through and come out on their feet? I couldn't." When Xion's sobs had quieted, he ran a hand through her hair. "Please, please don't hate yourself. You're strong. You're strong, and wonderful, and good."

Xion hugged Roxas tighter and then slowly pulled away. "…Thank you, Roxas. Thank you for always being there for me, when I need it most." She paused as if thinking something, then brushed some hair behind her ear and stared down at her feet. "Um… What you said the other night, about me being…pretty. Did you mean that?"

Roxas's heart skipped a beat. She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. And for maybe the first time, he really, truly looked at her. At the way her black hair framed her face, at the way her pale skin and pink lips looked in the moonlight, at her shining blue eyes reflecting the stars. "…Of course I did," Roxas said softly, half unbelieving that she ever doubted it. "You're beautiful, Xion."

If Xion gasped or if he was just imagining it, Roxas wasn't sure. She wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled herself up to him, and Roxas rested his forehead to hers. Xion closed her eyes, content, but Roxas couldn't bring his own eyes off her soft lips. He leaned in, she opened her eyes a crack and did the same…

Roxas closed his eyes and let out a breath. "Let's get some rest, Xion. Hades isn't done yet after all."

Xion caught herself. "Oh…right." Was it the torchlight, or was her face pink? Was it because of the torch that Roxas felt hot? When Xion slipped her hands off of Roxas's neck, Roxas caught one of them in his own. He intertwined his fingers with hers and brought her hand up so they wiped away her tears together.

"Always remember, Xion. You're strong and beautiful, and that's exactly what I love about you. Never forget. That's the truth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fight scenes are my weakness, and as such I hit a brick wall while writing this chapter. The final scene was actually the first thing written just because I wanted to put off writing the fights as long as possible.
> 
> On another topic, I've gone back to old chapters and retconned a minor thing: Xion's clothes that the fairies gave her. Now she's wearing a beautiful design by itporl on twitter: https://twitter.com/itporl/status/1060605333121318913 And of course as with her old outfit, it was used with permission.


	16. What's in the Box?

On the plains outside Thebes, under the cover of night, the man in the hood met with the Lord of the Dead.

Lauriam watched with trepidation as Hades silently fumed. Whatever had happened at the Coliseum it clearly hadn't gone well, and Lauriam knew better than to risk himself when Hades was in a mood like this. Their last few days of working together had made the god's hair-trigger temper quite clear.

Hades pinched the bridge of his nose and took several deep breaths while muttering to himself. "Okay, okay, it's fine, we're cool. We're good."

The red flames died down to blue. Lauriam was tempted to keep biting his tongue, but the box in his hands was all but burning a hole through his gloves. "The incident with the Keyblade wielders was just a favor between friends anyway. I'm the one who asked for it, and I understand this derailing was beyond your control."

Hades shot him a glare. "Watch your words, bub.  _Nothing_  is beyond my control."

"…As you say. Now what do you say we get to the meat of our deal?" He held Pandora's Box up, offering its skull-decorated contents to Hades. "I got you the box, and now you will get me…"

"Yes, yes, I know. I always know the terms of my agreements, you weed." Hades all but snarled as he swiped Pandora's Box out of Lauriam's hands. "Once Zeus is gone and Mount Olympus is under my thumb, I promise I will send you to the Final World. I swear to me. God's honor. But I may need a little extra, eh, backup. I can command the Heartless, but even their numbers along with the box's contents may not be quite enough."

Beneath his hood, Lauriam pursed his lips. "What are you getting at?"

"I did you a solid with those Keyblade brats, even if it went south. Now you do me another one. You've got the stench of those white husks all over you, you know." He pinched his nose and waved his hand in front of him. "Blech, smells like old rubber."

Lauriam hesitantly brought his sleeve up to sniff the black coat, but stopped halfway through the motion. "You're saying you want the Nobodies to join you in this attack on Thebes?"

"Well, unless you don't want to go to the Final World after all…"

His heart beat frantically.  _No_ , he couldn't lose this chance! Hades's every whim had to be met if Lauriam was to have any hope of a reunion through these methods. Keeping an outer appearance of calm, Lauriam snapped his fingers. The response was instant as myriad shapes of white and silver popped up out of the nothingness around them.

Hades chuckled. "Dusks and Creepers and Dancers, oh my." He turned his attention back down to Pandora's Box and fiddled with the lock as the Nobodies waited patiently and silently, their forms swaying back and forth. Lauriam rolled his right hand into a fist, desperate to calm his nerves. If Hades couldn't get it open after all this, then what? His temper may flare up once again.

But Lauriam needn't have worried. The lock came undone and the box opened a crack, releasing a black fog all around it that gently fell to the ground like a waterfall in slow motion. Hades chuckled as he peered through the open crack. "Oh this… This is good."

"What does that box contain, anyway?" Lauriam asked.

"What, you haven't heard the stories? Oh right, you're from another world. Well, let's just say that there's a reason Zeusy had this bad boy gone and buried." Whatever it was must have been powerful indeed because Heartless were already starting to manifest, attracted by the darkness within the box. Shadows clawed at Hades's robes desperately to reach it, while more powerful breeds appeared all around them. "Let's not keep them waiting any longer!"

Hades cackled madly and threw the box's lid back, turning the slow fall of dark mist into a tumultuous whirlwind that erupted out of the box and high into the sky. At the black spiral's apex dark clouds began to cover the night sky in a shroud that continued to expand ever outward. Lauriam took a step back as the sky above him turned blacker than night, the moon and stars all swallowed up. He heard a dry crunch and looked down to see the grass beneath his feet withering before his eyes. The Heartless writhed in ecstasy, and even the Nobodies seemed to notice the shift in this world's balance between darkness and light.

"What… What is…"

"What's in the box? I'm glad you asked! Hades held his hands up dramatically as a deafening roar shook the area. From within the vortex of darkness that still flew out of Pandora's Box, something else began to appear. Something  _alive_. Massive paws came from the dark first, settling on the decaying earth. What appeared to be a lion emerged, but a goat's head was beside the lion head. And as it pulled itself out of the blackness further, Lauriam saw that its tail was replaced by a writhing snake.

"All the world's evil."

Lauriam turned to Hades. He tried to speak, but his throat was dry and his voice came out only a faint creak. Swallowing, he tried again. "Pardon?"

"Oh that's not this thing specifically. This is just a chimera. Evil is what is in Pandora's Box." Hades waved a dismissive hand as more monsters began to appear out of the darkness: men with the upper halves of bulls, women with hair made of snakes, and more. Hades grinned and looked up at the sky, watching as the ever-expanding clouds made their way toward both Thebes and Mount Olympus. "And now that the box is in my hands, everything is coming up Hades."

**x-x-x**

"CHEERS!"

Atop Mount Olympus, glasses clinked together as chatter and laughter rolled along the clouds. The Olympian gods were attending a feast hosted by Zeus himself (with some aid from Bacchus, of course). The finest, largest boar in all the lands, hunted just this morning by Artemis herself, sat on an extravagant table surrounded by several varieties of cheese and fruit provided by Demeter. Wine flowed forth endlessly from a fountain, and the other gods had had to pull a drunk Bacchus away from it more than once tonight. The Muses provided a quiet ambiance in the background, accompanied by Apollo and his lyre.

The loudest laughter of all came from Zeus. The boisterous, bearded man clapped his back down on his brother beside him. "Come on Poseidon, one more round! It's not every day my boy makes it to the finals!"

As Poseidon downed his latest cup of wine, Hera chuckled in her seat beside Zeus. "Actually dear, it kind of is."

Zeus paused to think for a moment before letting out an even louder laugh than before and slamming his fist on the table. "Haha! So it is! Nonetheless, tonight we celebrate Hercules's victory as much as any he's had before!"

"Hear, hear!" the rest of the gods exclaimed, raising their glasses up for yet another toast. Still laughing, Zeus fell back in his seat and took a large bite out of his piece of boar. After downing it with some wine, he leaned back further and took a brief rest.

"'scuse me, pardon me. Hey Aphrodite,  _love_  the outfit."

When a new voice entered the party, Zeus suddenly snapped to attention. "Hermes! I thought someone was missing! Come, come, try some of my wife's wonderful cooking!" He held up a piece of pie and then swallowed it all in one bite.

The messenger of the gods approached Zeus nervously and tugged at his collar. "Uh, actually boss, there's something you might want to check out." He lowered his voice and leaned in. "In private."

"What? But Hermes, it's a party! Come, eat and drink, celebrate Hercules with the rest of us!" He slapped his hand on Hermes's back, sending the smaller god flying.

When Hermes righted himself and collected his glasses, he zoomed right up back to Zeus and spoke to him again, quietly. "Uh, actually, it's about Hercules. And kind of the surface as a whole. Zeus, babe, this is  _really_  important."

Zeus's brow furrowed. He gave Hermes a wary look, and when Hermes nodded back at him, Zeus frowned and looked to Hera. "I'll be right back, dear." He climbed up from his chair and followed Hermes through the corridors of Olympus, until the two of them came to a curtain of clouds on a cliff's edge.

"You're um, not gonna like this." Hermes pulled the clouds aside, revealing the familiar sight of Greece far below…but not as it had been only hours before.

Darkness swept out across the land in a wave, covering the fields, mountains, and forests in a deep blackness even darker than the night sky it was spreading over and replacing. Plants withered and animals fell over on the spot as black smoke crept across the earth. From the smoke manifested horrors, beasts of myth: gorgons, chimeras, minotaurs, and more. A great rift tore open the earth and out climbed Cerberus, guardian of the Underworld. Behind him came the multiheaded Hydra and the terrible Nemean Lion and Erymanthian Boar, which immediately began rampaging across the withering farmland. And wherever these monsters rampaged, all too familiar figures in black and white also sprang forth from the darkness: Heartless and Nobodies working side by side with the monsters of Greece.

Watching from the Realm of the Gods, Zeus roared in fury. "What's happening down there?!"

Hermes zipped away and came back an instant later carrying several of Zeus's thunderbolts. Zeus grabbed them and hurled one, two, three bolts at the encroaching darkness, but they didn't so much as slow it down. The darkness climbed the cliffs of Mount Olympus and soon reached the Realm of the Gods, drowning the heavens in black. The sky above was shrouded in impassible clouds, and the omnipresent glows faded from Zeus and Hermes's bodies.

"What…is this?" Zeus looked down at his hands. He felt so weak, like…like he was in the Underworld. That's what this darkness reminded him of. It was as if the Underworld's hero-to-zero atmosphere was spreading across the entire world. Zeus clenched his hands into fists and grit his teeth tightly. He didn't know how, but this had Hades written all over it. "Hermes, explain!"

Hermes cowered as the last of his own godly glow faded from his body. "S-Someone stole Pandora's Box the other night, so Hades must have opened it!"

The box! Blast it, Zeus should have known better than to entrust it to Hephaestus's care. He should have hidden it again as soon as it was retrieved from Thebes. And if that box was spreading the Underworld's effects across all of Greece, then they'd need a way to deal with it. "Who has the Olympus Stone?"

"That'd be uh, Hercules, sir. He's held onto it since that last romp with that Auron guy."

Zeus let out a breath. Well, at least the best man for the job also had the right tool for it. "Hermes, tell Hercules about Pandora's Box. Go! Go!"

Hermes saluted, the wings on his sandals flapping. "Gone, babe." And with that, he shot down the side of the mountain and off toward Thebes.

**x-x-x**

"Xion! Xion, wake up!"

She'd fallen asleep a little while ago, after their…awkward moment on the balcony. Roxas felt bad about waking her up when she so clearly needed the rest, but, uh, she needed to see this. Kind of urgently.

"Xion, come on!" He shook her somewhere halfway between gently and forcefully, eventually convincing her to open her eyes. They stared up at him in a mix of tiredness and confusion.

"Roxas…?" Xion sat up in bed and rubbed at her eyes, then stifled a yawn…then got a face full of purple as Roxas tossed her jacket at her. As she pulled it off her face she gave him a quizzical look. "What's going on?"

Roxas gestured toward the balcony. "It's better that you see for yourself." And without another word he hurried outside. Xion stared after him for a moment before quickly climbing out of bed and tugging her jacket on as she caught up to him. When she too came out onto the balcony, she almost toppled forward in shock at the sight and had to grab onto the railing to steady herself.

"What?!"

Once again Thebes was under attack. Heartless and Nobodies worked together to hassle Thebans and topple reconstruction projects, while more damage was being done by giant beasts unlike anything Roxas and Xion had ever seen before, monsters with neither the Heartless nor Nobody emblems to be found anywhere on their bodies. And up above the sky was covered in pitch black clouds, blocking off the moon and stars. The only sources of light were the torches lining Thebes's streets.

Xion looked toward Roxas so quickly that she almost got whiplash. "What's going on?!"

"It's gotta be Hades. Come on, we need to find Herc!" Without waiting for a response, Roxas vaulted himself over the edge of the balcony. His Keyblades were already in his hands before he landed on the streets below.

Xion landed soon after, and he could hear her calling behind him. "Roxas, wait! You can't–"

Whatever she was saying was drowned out by the crashing sound of a Berserker Nobody jumping down to intercept Roxas. He brought his Keyblades up to block its massive claymore, only to feel like he was hit by a freight train and get flung back into the wall of a nearby building. Roxas grunted and slid down onto the ground, his Keyblades clattering beside him.

"What the? I feel so weak…" Roxas stared at his hands, then his eyes shot up when the Berserker loomed over him. He was nearly flattened like a pancake before Xion grabbed his hand and tugged him away at the last second. As they ran through the streets, dodging enemy and rubble, Roxas could feel his breathing getting shallower, his body growing heavier. "Xion…!"

She was panting as she led them, clearly not fairing much better. She pulled him into a back alley and leaned against the wall, taking several deep breaths as a lion-goat-snake hybrid rampaged past them. "'Heroes are zeroes'," she said as if quoting someone, then turned to Roxas. "Roxas, whatever is happening, it's like Thebes has become a part of the Underworld. The air is the same. This is how I felt down there, weak and useless. I don't…want him to find me again… I don't want to–" Her breaths grew quicker. Xion wrapped her arms around herself and slumped against the wall.

Roxas's reaction was immediate, wrapping his own arms around her. "It's okay, Xion. It's okay. I'm here, and I'll protect you."

"Yeah…" Xion leaned her head against his chest, and he could feel her breathing stabilizing. "Thank you."

"Don't sweat it." Roxas looked away, hoping to hide the blush he knew was creeping up his cheeks. "As for this weakness, Phil mentioned that too, when I told him where you'd gone. He said we'd be powerless without something called the Olympus Stone."

Xion gently pulled herself out of Roxas's grip. "Do you know where we can get that?"

"Phil made it sound like Zeus had it. But I don't think we'll be getting to Mount Olympus any time soon with all this going on." Roxas peeked around the corner and out onto the streets, where a small herd of minotaurs and Satyr Heartless rampaged together, knocking over everything in their path.

"Herc might have a faster way to get there," Xion mused. "Or maybe he had the same idea already went to get the stone!"

"That's a good idea. Come on, let's go find Herc!" Roxas grabbed Xion's hand so as not to lose her in the chaos, and together the two took off down the twisting alleys of Thebes.

But navigating a city under siege was easier said than done, especially when defending yourself was now out of the question. Buildings crumbled all around them as Heartless, Nobodies, and monsters rampaged this way and that. They kept to the shadows and stayed pressed up against walls, weaving their way through streets and gardens, down waterways and up hills, over toppled statues and under straining archways. Eventually they came upon the agora at the heart of the city, where the two of them were met with quite the unexpected sight.

As helpless Thebans watched on, a figure whose very being was glowing a brilliant gold punched a massive rampaging boar right in its snout. The boar went flying and crashed into an equally large lion, which then slammed into a serpent. The figure grabbed the serpent and tied the lion and boar up in it, then swung his makeshift wrecking ball around and around before tossing all three monsters out of the city where they soared over the horizon and vanished. The godly glow faded away, revealing Hercules underneath.

Hercules turned back to the crowd. "Is everyone okay?"

"Herc!" Roxas and Xion sprinted over to him. As Roxas skidded to a stop, he looked the hero up and down. "How did you do that? Xion and I can't fight in this weird air."

Hercules gave the two of them a grin and fished for something out of his pocket. "With this." He held out his hand to reveal a golden coin that fit snugly in his palm, with a cloud and lightning bolt emblazoned on its smooth surface.

"Is that the Olympus Stone?" Xion asked.

"You know about it? Yeah, I've held onto it ever since my last trip into the Underworld, just in case. Here, let me give you two a hand." Herc gripped the Olympus Stone and held it up over his head. A ring of light pulsed outward from it, followed by a shower of pale golden sparkles that rained down on the two Keyblade wielders. Roxas could feel the effects immediately: the invisible weights on his limbs lifting, the chill on his skin fading away.

Roxas called Oathkeeper into his hands and examined the weapon, its white blade shimmering slightly in the darkness. "That's it?" he asked Hercules.

"That's it. The Olympus Stone has done its job, and you can fight in Hades's domain now."

"Sorry… I sure wish I had known about this before," Xion said with a sigh.

Hercules crossed his arms and gave the two of them a look that made them feel incredibly small, like children being scolded by their parent. "Maybe next time you two shouldn't go running off and making plans without cluing the rest of us in." Then his face relaxed, and he out his hands on their shoulders. "But even if things got a little out of hand, we're all okay now. So let's work together and stop whatever scheme Hades has cooked up this time!"

Roxas nodded, and though it took a moment Xion did give the two of them a smile of agreement. Herc gently pulled his hands away and then looked behind the two of them with a grimace. "But first, it looks like we've got some cleaning up to do." Roxas and Xion turned around, calling their weapons into their hands at the same time. A swarm of Heartless had manifested and was coming right for them; and more importantly, for the crowd Thebans nearby.

"Cleanup duty?" Roxas asked as he tightened his grip on his Keyblades.

Herc laughed, and as he punched a fist into his palm his body began to glow with that godly light once again. "That's half of what a hero's job is. Make sure not to let a single one through, these people our under our protection!"

"Right!"

Their opponents were a swarm of Soldiers, Bizarre Archers, and –  _ugh_  – Earth Cores. Cores aside those were simple enough to take care of unless their numbers grew too high. Roxas darted forward, running under the Bizarre Archers' rain of arrows, and crashed his crossed Keyblades into the chest of a Soldier. He sent the Soldier flying and then spun his Keyblades around him, sending out a thin and razor-sharp ring of light that slashed at all the surrounding Heartless – a technique he was partial to using against Sora during their fight in the World That Never Was. More arrows came at Roxas but Xion was on the job, with a Fire, Blizzard, and Water spells firing in quick succession from the tip of her Keyblade and knocking their arrows off-course. A second round made quick work of them.

The Earth Cores were…a different story. At least there was no sand around here, but even still Roxas was more than not a fan of the spike-backed Heartless after his encounters with them since coming back. Roxas swung at one only for it to turn around at the last minute, and his Keyblades rebounded helplessly against its back. The Heartless dove into the earth and moved through it like a fish through water, then leapt out to attack Xion from below. She cried out and narrowly avoided a second attack before fist met face; Hercules sent the Earth Core flying with one punch, but there were still more to go.

Not that Herc would let them last much longer. As the Earth Cores moved through the stone and earth around them, Herc brought both fists down on the ground and triggered a minor earthquake. Minor, but enough to get the job done. The Cores flew out of the ground in surprise, giving Xion and Roxas the chance to send a rain of Thunder spells on the area and making sure to strike each and every one.

The last of the freed hearts had barely finished vanishing into the sky before something small, blue, and fast came flying at them with frantic calls. "Heeerc! Hey Herculeeees!"

Herc looked up at the voice. "Hermes?"

The short blue flying man came to a stop and saluted well being kept aloft by little flapping wings attached to sandals. "I was gonna give you a warning, but it looks like you all have the worst of it."

"Roxas, Xion, this is Hermes, messenger of the gods," Herc said, giving the two of them a short introduction. He turned to Hermes without missing a beat. "So you know what's going on? Is my father figuring things out?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure do babe. But that's a no on the boss; we're as powerless as these mortals without the Olympus Stone."

Herc grimaced and crossed his arms. "Right… And I probably don't have enough time to deliver the stone to Olympus in the middle of all this. So what's the source of this mess?"

"I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count."

"Hades, right?" Roxas asked, butting in on the conversation. Hermes looked at Roxas, then looked at Hercules who gave him a nod. Then Hermes shrugged and turned to the kids. "Yeah, Hades. He opened Pandora's Box!"

Hercules took a step back. "He what?!"

"What box?" Xion asked.

"Pandora's Box," Herc explained with a grimace. "It contains darkness and monsters, and all the pure evil of the world. That explains why everything feels like the Underworld now. But how'd Hades get it?"

Hermes shrugged. "If I had to guess he probably had some lackey steal it. But what matters now is that he has it and it's open. So Herc, you gotta close it! That should solve everything!"

"We'll go with you!" Roxas added. "You helped us, we'll help you. And besides…" He looked to Xion who cast him a worried glance. But he gave her a reassuring smile and then turned back to Hercules. "I –  _we_  – have a score to settle with Hades."

Hercules nodded. "You heard them then, Hermes. Go tell the gods we'll handle Hades."

"On it, babe!" And like a bolt from the blue, he was gone.

Hercules held his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. A moment later they heard the sound of flapping wings, as from around a nearby building came– a winged horse?! The flying stallion landed gracefully, allowing its passengers Phil and Meg to disembark. They greeted Hercules and he gave them a quick recap of the situation, but trailed off when he saw Roxas and Xion's stunned expressions.

Herc chuckled. "Wasn't Pegasus in the stage show you guys saw?"

"Yeah, but…that's pretty different from seeing the real thing," Roxas said, his eyes locked on Pegasus's form.

"His fur is so pretty!" Xion added. She ran a hand along his back and Pegasus snorted contentedly – or perhaps smugly? – before striking a heroic pose.

"Alright, don't give him a big head," Herc joked. "Phil, Meg we've got some more citizens here for you to get to safety. We've got Hades to deal with."

Phil spat on the ground. "I thought I smelled him behind this!"

Meg put a hand on Herc's arm. "Don't worry, Wonderboy, we'll keep them safe like the rest. You go do your hero thing."

"Thanks, Meg. We'll be right back–" Herc was cut off by the rumbling earth. Heads turned as his statue in the center of the agora toppled and the ground tore open. From the gaping fissure came one, two, three giant serpentine heads. As the citizens cried out in terror, Phil's jaw dropped and Hercules slumped forward. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me."

The heads rose up and up, revealing that at the base of their long necks they were all attached to a single lizard like body. The Hydra, back from the dead! Herc jumped on Pegasus's back while Meg and Phil began to order the citizens around, ushering them toward the Coliseum and hopefully to safety.

Roxas ran up beside Pegasus. "Herc! How do we fight this thing?"

Herc grit his teeth and looked between Roxas and Xion, the Hydra, and the lightless black sky overhead. Lowering his head and letting out a breath, he then looked back at the kids and locked eyes with them. "I'll worry about fighting the Hydra. You two go handle Hades."

Xion started. "What? But Herc–"

Herc held up a hand. "Stop. Honestly, you two are the best for the job: your Keyblades can probably stop the threat of Pandora's Box for good." Xion stared down at the Keyblade in her hand, and then Herc chuckled. "Besides, Roxas is right. You two have a score to settle with him; I've already settled mine."

"…Okay," Xion said at last. She tightened her grip on Sign of Innocence and looked to Roxas with determination. "You ready?"

Roxas nodded. "Yeah."

"Be careful, you two. Focus on getting the box over beating Hades, and when you finally close it, make sure to seal it with your Keyblades."

"Right. We'll be back before you know it, Herc!" And with that, the two ran off into the city.

Hercules patted Pegasus on the neck and he lifted off. "Alright boy, now get me up on the Hydra's back!"

Pegasus's neighs and the Hydra's roars echoed behind Roxas and Xion as they continued to hurry through Thebes. There were no more people to be found now, just a few wandering packs of baddies, so hopefully everyone found safety with the help of Meg and Phil. As they climbed a hill and arrived at the city's highest point, an overlook with a perfect view of Mount Olympus, the blue glow of Hades's hair was in sight. Roxas narrowed his eyes and quickened his pace, but before he could call out Hades's name Xion suddenly came to a halt and pulled Roxas aside.

"What's the big idea?!"

"Ssh! Look!"

Hades wasn't alone. Beside him, watching the chaos unfold from the overlook, was a man in the familiar black coat and hood. Roxas gasped. The guy from Enchanted Dominion!

Hades stretched his hands out to his sides and took in a deep breath through his nostrils. "Ahh, I love the smell of chaos in the evening. I don't know why I ever tried with the Titans when I could have just done this. Now, where'd I put the box…" He turned around to face the man in the hood, who held the box in his hands. "Oh. You're still here?"

"What? Of course I am. We still have our deal, Hades, and I held up my end of the bargain."

Hades scratched the inside of his ear with his pink finger. "Come again?"

The man's displeasure was clear in his voice, even if his face was hidden in the shadow of his hood. "Our deal, Hades. Grant me access to the Final World. You made me a promise."

"The Final World, huh? Final World, Final World…" Hades crossed his arms and tapped his head while he slowly paced in front of the man. "Oh yeah, that! See, here's the thing about promises: don't keep ones you can't keep."

"What?" The man took a step back and pulled Pandora's Box protectively closer.

"You think I can just open a door and access the Final World willy-nilly? Please. I may be Lord of the Dead, but my dominion only extends to  _this_  world. If I could leave the Underworld behind and go to a place as pretty as the Final World, don't you think I would have ditched my hole in the ground a long time ago?"

The man's shoulders slumped. "I can't say I didn't see this coming. But I had to take any chance I could."

"That's the spirit! Better to have tried and lost than have never tried at all, right? Now, give me that." Hades swiped Pandora's Box from the man's hands and turned back to the overlook. His bony fingers tapped at the box's lid and then slowly began to crack it open. "And let's enjoy the fireworks."

"HADES!"

Coated in light, Roxas shot out of their hiding place like a lightning bolt and charged head-on at Hades. Pandora's Box was sent flying from his grip, and he struggled to hold back Roxas's Keyblades. "What the– You had the Olympus Stone?!"

"Roxas, I got it!" Roxas glanced back over his shoulder to see her holding Pandora's Box triumphantly over her head.

"No!" Hades grunted and fought against Roxas's pushing, but successfully shoved the boy aside and hurled a fireball at Xion. She cried out as it exploded and sent her toppling to the ground. Once more the box flew through the air.

"Xion!" Roxas hurried to her side while Pandora's Box halted in midair and hovered in front of Hades.

Behind Hades, the man in the black coat pressed his hand against the wall behind him and opened a corridor of darkness. "This is where I tag out." He walked backwards into the shadows and vanished, as if he were never there.

But the Keyblade wielders' attention wasn't on him, it was on the very angry god standing in front of them and literally fuming. "You want this box? Is that it?" Hades gestured with his hand and Pandora's Box levitated higher into the sky, then a spherical barrier formed out of interlocking hexagons flashed around it, locking it off from them. "Well you can't have it! Things are finally going my way! And no one is going to meddle this time, least of all some putrid puppet pals!"

Roxas helped Xion to her feet, and then Xion gripped his hand tightly before turning to Hades and resummoning her Keyblade. "We'll show you we're more than just your playthings."

Xion dropped into her combat stance, and Roxas did the same beside her. "That's right. You'll pay for what you did to Xion, Hades!"

"You irritating little…! That's IT!" In a burst of scorching heat, Hades's color scheme shifted to a furious red. "It's about time you pesky lights were BURNT OUT!"

A wave of fire flew out in time with Hades's screams and scorched the stone of the overlook, but the two of them were protected by a Reflect that Xion threw up at the last moment. As soon as the barrier around them fell Roxas darted at Hades and swung both Keyblades with all his might, slashing at Hades two, four, six times before the god managed to break out of Roxas's combo and sent a fireball his way. When Roxas shattered the fireball with his Keyblade it split apart into many smaller pieces that flew around him and back toward Xion, who during all of this had been assailing Hades with spells.

To her credit, Xion reacted to the approaching flurry of flames with haste. She leaned back and swerved and cartwheeled away, moving like a dancer on the stage to dodge Hades's attack. The flames exploded behind her, giving a lightshow to go with her performance. Before the last of the smoke had dissipated, Xion cast Blizzard to leave a trail of ice along the ground and then jumped on and rode the path into melee range. Hades had his hands full keeping Roxas's relentless attacks at bay, and wasn't prepared for a third Keyblade to come in at his blind spot and hit him across the shoulder.

"Blast you!" Hades roared. His whole body ignited in flame, pushing Roxas and Xion back from heat alone, let alone the actual burning. He thrust his arms toward both of them and flamethrowers erupted from beneath his sleeves to stream toward them. Xion darted out of the way and launched a series of Blizzara missiles, cooling Hades off just in time for Roxas to recover. Roxas tossed one Keyblade high into the sky and his body converted into particles of light which shot up to meet his Keyblade in midair. He became physical once more and dropped down on Hades from above, gravity backing his attack. But only one slash got through, and before Roxas could follow up with the second Hades grabbed him by the head.

"Cerberus, fetch!" With a furious grunt, Hades tossed Roxas over the edge of the overlook. Even over the wind blowing past his ears and his heart pounding in fear, Roxas could hear Xion shrieking in horror. But before impact and certain death came, a growling mass of black shot up from below. Roxas righted himself just in time to stop himself from being devoured by a massive three-headed dog, using Oblivion to keep one razor-toothed maw propped open. He avoided another head's attack and slashed at the third with Oathkeeper, then jumped away from the dog and ran up the side of the wall as it pawed and snapped at him from below.

Roxas cleared the wall and returned to the overlook to see Xion attacking Hades relentlessly, no doubt in retribution for what had just happened to him. Her Keyblade was supercharged and glowing with magical power, and after every combo attack she would finish with a Watera or Blizzara spell from her hands. But Roxas couldn't go join her with this hound nipping at his heels. He called Oblivion back into his hand as Cerberus's three heads rose up from below the cliff's edge. One snapped at him and he jumped back, another snapped and he jumped aside. The third he didn't manage to avoid, not entirely; he wasn't hit by its bite, but it slammed its muzzle into him and knocked him into a mighty paw that Cerberus had also brought up to the battlefield.

"Don't play with your food, Cerberus! Finish him!"

At their master's command all three of Cerberus's heads lunged at Roxas at once. Roxas leapt up and landed on the center neck of the beast, careful not to look down at the long drop that awaited him if he were to fall off. Cerberus's forelegs were propped up against the overlook, while his hind legs stood on a rocky outcropping on the cliff below. Massive and monstrous as he was, he was still a dog, and dogs weren't meant to stand on two legs. Throwing him off-balance shouldn't be too hard.

"Xion, hit him hard!"

Xion blocked Hades swiping at her with flaming claws and looked at Roxas wide-eyed. "What?!"

"Just do it!"

"Okay… I hope you know what you're doing!" Xion broke away from Hades and jumped back, then gripping her Keyblade with both hands pointed it toward Roxas as he danced atop Cerberus's middle neck, avoiding the gnashing teeth of two heads. White strands of nothingness swirled around her arms and her Keyblade disappeared only to be replaced in a flash by a weapon replicated from the second Organization: Xigbar's arrowguns, combined into their sniper rifle form.

As the rifle began to charge, Hades wasn't having it. He launched another fireball at Xion and she couldn't avoid it, knocking her to the ground and firing the blast prematurely. A large blue arrow shot out of the barrel of the rifle but its aim was off, and it flew high into the sky – for a moment. It was Xigbar's powers she had replicated, after all. Space warped around the blast and it reappeared directly above Cerberus. As soon as he realized the blast was coming for him Roxas tossed Oathkeeper at Hades and then teleported to his Keyblade in a stream of light, avoiding the rifle shot at the last second as it made impact and sent Cerberus tumbling.

As soon as Oathkeeper pierced Hades Roxas reappeared in a flash of light with his hand around the hilt. He pulled Oathkeeper back and then slashed at Hades with Oblivion before being tossed aside by a flamethrower. "You don't see me attacking  _your_  pets!" Hades shouted.

"You should treat your dog better!" Xion shot back. With Sign of Innocence back in her hand she hit Hades dead on in the chest with a Blizzaga spell and then came down on him and shattered the ice with her Keyblade. Hades recoiled and shards of ice went flying all around them, then halted in midair as Xion raised her weapon. She spun on one foot and pointed her Keyblade at Hades again, and the shards of ice all rained down at a singular point: at him. As Hades was assaulted from all sides by a storm of miniature blades, Xion charged her Keyblade with magic once more and thrust it forward. A glow of blue and white hit Hades in the gut and sent him flying, swearing and shouting, as he fell down the side of the cliff to join Cerberus.

"You won't see the last of meeeee…!"

But for the time being, they would.

Roxas dismissed his Keyblades and grabbed both of her hands in his. "That was amazing, Xion!"

Xion laughed and bounced up and down excitedly as she too gripped his hands tightly. "Your plan was genius, Roxas! Dangerous though, too. What if I had shot before you were ready?"

"But you didn't. It all worked out, and you even got the finishing blow on Hades! See? You're amazing Xion." And her smile in response to those words, so pure and genuine, truly warmed Roxas's heart. "Now, let's finish things off here."

With Hades dealt with, the barrier around Pandora's Box vanished and it slowly began to fall to the earth. Xion snatched it from the air and examined it. "So what do we do to stop this darkness?"

Roxas leaned in and rapped his knuckles against the side of the box. "I'm not sure– Whoa, it's doing something!"

Perhaps it was the way he had touched it or perhaps not, but suddenly the box sprung to life in Xion's hands. A vortex lowered from the clouds and began to spiral back into the box, sucking them up like a vacuum. As the stars and moon in the night sky above began to gradually become more and more visible, terrified animalistic roars rose up from all around Thebes. Chimeras and gorgons and minotaurs and more all flew into the air against their will and got stuck in the growing vortex, their very bodies dissipating into mist before they were sucked back inside the box.

"Roxas, get your Keyblade ready!" Xion cried over the roars of the wind and beasts. As soon as the last of the darkness returned to the box and Xion slammed the lid shut, she turned it to face Roxas who launched a beam of light from Oathkeeper. A blue ring pulsed outward from the box and a soft  _click_  echoed in the air around them.

Several moments passed as Xion and Roxas just stared at Pandora's Box in her hands, as lifeless and inconspicuous as any other container. "Is that it?" Roxas asked.

"Hey, guys!" The flapping wings of Pegasus turned their heads skyward to see Hercules calling down at them from above. He, Phil, and Meg were all aboard, and as Pegasus landed on the cobblestone Phil leapt off his seat and cheerfully punched Roxas in the knee.

"You did it, kid! I knew you were a champ in the making from the moment I met you way back then!"

Meg slipped off Pegasus herself. "Way to go, heroes."

Roxas and Xion glanced at each other and grinned, then Xion turned to Hercules and handed him the box. "Here you go. What are you going to do with it?"

Hercules took the box carefully and investigated the lock before he looked content enough to reply. "I'll give it to the gods on Olympus – and  _this_  time make sure it's hidden somewhere more secure than wherever it was before. It probably wouldn't hurt to beef up security, either. They can get a bit complacent up there."

"You'd think they learn after the last few times they got attacked," Meg added.

Phil cleared his throat, and when everyone turned to him he patted Hercules on the leg. "Well, the night's not over yet."

"What do you mean, Phil?" Roxas asked.

"What do I mean?! I mean the Games, kid! We've still got a match – the final match! My two champs in the ring together, mano a mano!"

Oh, wow. In all the chaos of tonight, Roxas had completely forgotten about the Games. He was so tired and sore, but… He looked up to Herc. "What do you say? You ready for that tonight?"

Herc's smile was as warm as a torch on a cold night. He held his hand out. "I'm definitely looking forward to facing one of the heroes of Thebes."

"Just so we're clear, Xion did the heavy lifting tonight." When Xion gave Roxas a shove in the shoulder, Roxas laughed and took Herc's hand. "But likewise. And I promise I won't go easy on you, Herc."

**x-x-x**

"Ow, ow, ow… Ow! Xion, careful!"

Roxas hissed in pain as Xion pulled her hand away and stood up. She placed her hands on her hips and glared down at him on the bed on front her. "Well how did you think a fight with Hercules was going to end?"

"I was hoping with less bandages," Roxas said as he ran a hand over one on his cheek and then winced.

Phil's laughter was somewhere between mocking and encouraging as he approached the pair. "Ah, give it a rest, kid. There's no one who can beat Herc. Besides, those cuts and bruises should be fine in a couplea days."

"That doesn't make right now any less sore…"

More laughter, from everyone this time. Phil's guffaws were the loudest despite his quiet size, while Meg's light chuckling was the softest as she leaned against the doorframe. "So what's next for you kids?" Meg asked while crossing her arms and watching them with a smile.

Roxas pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Starting off on our adventure again, I guess. It's been fun but we've definitely been here longer than we planned to."

"Well we've enjoyed having you, even if the circumstances weren't the greatest," Herc said. "Stop by again soon; maybe if you're lucky, Sora, Donald, and Goofy will be here too. I'd be happy to introduce you, I think you'd get along great."

Roxas smiled, but he wondered if his eyes could hide the pang of sadness in his heart when Herc said those words. So that's what it meant to be innocently insensitive. "We may just take you up on that," he said with a nod.

Meg's smile faltered as she looked from Roxas to Xion. "You gonna be okay, Xion?"

"I…" Xion took a deep breath, her fingers curling into fists in her lap. "I'll be better. Yeah, I will."

Meg nodded. "You're strong. But don't keep these things bottled up, alright? Talk it out."

Roxas rubbed the back of his head. "Meg's right. We should tell Axel, though boy I'm not looking forward to that…" As Roxas fumbled for his Gummiphone, Xion's head snapped up.

"Oh! Herc, Meg, Phil. There is one thing I'd like to ask before we go."

The three of them glanced at each other, then Herc shrugged. "What is it? We'd be happy to help if we can." Xion pulled out her own phone and opened the camera.

Herc rubbed his chin. "Hey, Sora had one of those too. It's like an instant self-portrait."

"So a memory for the road?" Phil asked.

Xion nodded. "Yeah. I just need us all to get together." She moved over to the group, tugging Roxas along, and then held her phone up so all of them were in its sights. "When I say cheese, smile!"

**x-x-x**

In a dimly lit alley somewhere amidst the dark towers of the World That Never Was, a dark corridor opened up. Lauriam stepped out and closed the entry into the darkness behind him, then upon seeing that the world's near constant rain was not actually present, lowered his hood. He stepped out onto the empty streets, surrounded by neon signs that advertised to no one – no one save for the woman sitting at a table outside an empty coffee shop across the street.

"You're back," she observed with a smile. "How'd it go?"

Lauriam shook his head and sat down across from his companion. "Hades played me for a fool. He strung me along for his own ambitions and never knew how to access the Final World in the first place."

She scoffed behind her coffee cup. "I could have told you that's how it would end."

Lauriam raised an eyebrow as he leaned on one hand. "Seeking out Hades was your suggestion in the first place."

"As a joke! You take everything so seriously, even with your heart back." She took another sip and the two sat in silence, listening to the sound of nothing that permeated Never Was. Tracing her finger around the rim of the coffee cup, she looked up at Lauriam questioningly. "So what now? Back to plan A?"

Lauriam's eyes wandered, turning to the ruins of the Castle That Never Was not far away. "…Yes," he said finally. "We're continuing with the sleeping worlds plan." He turned his full attention back to his companion, who looked uncertain about his decision. But it was his decision nevertheless, and they'd continue down this road regardless of misgivings. "Elrena, what is the next world where the Flood of Light is emerging?"

The blonde set her cup aside. "Well…"

**x-x-x**

The cave was as damp and quiet as it always was, and like always, he couldn't shake the feel that he was being watched. There had been stories about this place since his childhood, since his old man's childhood, saying the cave was haunted. That a monster lived there. But he'd never paid it any mind; if anything, all the warnings about it had always made him even more curious. For as long as he could remember he had always been exploring this curious little cave.

As he rounded the corner, something caught shined out of the corner of his eye. But when he turned his head, nothing was there. Well, save for the oddity that had always been there. Same as it ever was. He brushed a curious hand against the old wood, so out of place in this cave. "What was that light?" he whispered.

"Hey!" His friend's voice called from the entrance. "You in here man? The game is gonna start soon!"

"Oh, crap! Yeah, I'm coming!"

"Tidus, hurry it up, ya?" Wakka's head poked in from around the corner. "We gotta hurry over to the stadium."

"I said I'm coming Wakka! I just… I thought I saw something."

"You hit your head? Come on, Coach is waiting."

"You don't need to tell me twice. Let's teach those Luca Goers a lesson, come on!"

"Yeah bruddah, that's what I like to hear!" Wakka pumped his fist and hurried back outside toward their boats, but Tidus hesitated and cast one last look at the mysterious old door that sat at the back of the secret place. He knew he hadn't imagined that light…had he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FF14's new expansion Shadowbringers came out when this chapter was partway finished, so writing got set aside for about a week while I was playing that. Sorry!


	17. A Homecoming of a Sort

The Ocean Between was undeniably a beautiful sight. The endless deep blue sky was like a sea of stars, countless distant worlds shining brightly, forming works of natural art as they gathered together into constellations and galaxies. Nebulae resembled auroras, their shifting colors occasionally interrupted by a shooting star passing through. Asteroids and rock formations had surprising variety in their size and shape, some forming tunnel networks and others as large as mountains. Massive ice crystals floated about, glittering in the light of the sun and refracting its rays this way and that. A coral reef occupied one of the nearby asteroids, bright and colorful in this alien sea despite the lack of water to sustain it.

Yes, beautiful… If only someone was looking at it.

On one of the floating mountains occupied by coral, two figures sat together. Though alone in the vast silence of the Ocean Between, neither had their eyes on their surroundings. Xion's eyes were downcast, her knees hugged tight to her chest. Once the adrenaline of the night before had worn off, everything that had happened regarding Hades's statues came back to her in full force. She hadn't said a word since waking up and setting off, her worst nightmare back to haunt her. She wasn't being hard on herself, calling herself a failure and mistake, not anymore. Not after her talk with Roxas, after they almost… At that particular memory, she buried her red face in her knees. No, it wasn't a matter of self-esteem anymore. But that didn't mean the trauma of being puppeted once again, of having control of her body torn from her  _again_ , was suddenly gone.

Roxas wasn't dumb and could clearly see that Xion was still bothered. He had tried to get her to talk it out as they did that night, but she was barely responsive, let alone speaking. And he wasn't exactly in the greatest of moods, either. Hades was defeated but he wasn't dead. He didn't pay enough for what he did, for almost taking one of Roxas's friends – his  _best_  friend – away from him. And moreover, she had only been put in that position because he was a dumbass who let her charge into the Underworld alone and unprepared. It was his own damn fault this happened to her! Roxas's hands shook as he held his Gummiphone, and he had to keep himself from tossing it over the edge into the void of space. There was someone else he had to talk to. Someone who needed to know, deserved to know, what happened to Xion in Olympus.

The phone rang and a pit grew in Roxas's gut. How could he face this? Maybe he should hang up and try again later–

"Hey there, Roxas! Uh, where are you right now?"

Lea's smile on the Gummiphone screen was a sight for sore eyes. In the background Isa was cooking something up for them to eat and he gave a quick hello, his voice distant.

"Hey, Axel," Roxas responded. "We're between worlds. Olympus is taken care of and we fixed the soulbinding thing I told you about the other day, so we moved on."

"What happened?"

"Huh?"

All humor immediately gone from his voice, Lea leaned in closer to his screen. "I can hear the 'but' in your voice. Roxas, what happened?" Roxas glanced aside, toward Xion. If she had even noticed that he'd called Lea then she hadn't shown any sign of it. Lea didn't miss that glance, however brief it was. "Is Xion okay?"

Roxas sighed as his stomach tied into knots. He was absolutely dreading this conversation, but Lea was both of their best friend. He had the right to know. "She's…not exactly hurt, I guess."  _Let's just rip off this band-aid._  Roxas took a deep breath. "Axel, a lot happened since we talked last. We did deal with Hades, but, well…"

Keeping his voice and temper as steady as he could, Roxas recounted both Xion's recurring nightmares of the Organization and the events in Olympus: Xion's plan to infiltrate the Underworld, his stupid, idiotic, braindead decision to allow her to go alone, and everything that happened after. Over the course of Roxas's explanation, Isa had set down whatever he was cooking and come closer to listen in. Both his and Lea's expressions were unreadable, and that honestly may have made Roxas feel even worse than if they were angry at him.

"…And it's all my fault. I failed her, Axel, and she had to face her fears again because of me. I let her charge in there on her own, and now that the fighting is over she's practically catatonic. She hasn't spoken to me all day." He could feel tears burning in his eyes as he spoke, but he fought desperately to keep a straight face, to not tip over the edge. "I messed up. I messed up so badly."

Isa and Lea continued to be silent. Judging him, no doubt. The two of them glanced at each other, exchanging silent words as only two childhood friends can, before Lea finally spoke up. "What you did – what both of you did – was stupid and reckless, Roxas. You're absolutely right about that. You should have planned more and spoken with your friends there, and Xion suffered for it."

Roxas winced at Lea's words as if his friend had slapped him across the face. "I'm sorry…"

"But the blame isn't entirely on you," Isa added. "Xion came up with the plan even if you enabled her. But moreover, this Hades person is the one who actually controlled her. He's the one who forced you two to fight, and he's the one who put you into the position for her to be controlled in the first place. Accept the parts that are your fault, but don't blame yourself for everything." Isa cracked a slight smile. "Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

Lea let out a breath and placed his hands on the table. "Let me talk to her. I dunno if I'll succeed where you couldn't, but let me at least try."

"…Yeah. Okay," Roxas said quietly. He turned to Xion and put a hand on her shoulder to shake her gently. "Xion. Xion, you there? Axel wants to say hi."

Xion looked up from her stupor, though her eyes looked distant. She looked at Roxas as if she didn't comprehend what it was he was saying, and so Roxas held up his phone to show Lea and Isa on the screen. Only then did it seem to click with her what Roxas meant. She slowly released her arms around her knees and lowered her legs, then took the phone when Roxas handed it over.

"Hey, kiddo," Lea said quietly.

Xion sniffled before responding. "Hi, Axel."

"Roxas told me what happened. Sounds like things got pretty rough… I'm sorry I wasn't there for you two. I should have been, but I wasn't."

"I don't know if things would be any different if you were."

"Maybe not, but maybe they would be. And that's why I'm coming to see you."

Roxas and Xion both stared at the screen, stunned. "What?" Roxas shook his head. "Axel, you know you can't get near flooded Keyholes! Besides, what about work?"

"I have a few days off," he responded with a nonchalant shrug. Then he was back to serious. "Look, I'm going to be blunt. After how the two of you bungled Olympus, I honestly don't know if you can handle yourselves."

Another slap across the face. "What is that supposed to mean?!" Roxas shouted, pulling his phone out of Xion's hands to glare directly at Lea.

"Exactly what it sounds like. Isa is right that most of the blame ultimately falls on Hades, but even if things worked out in the end the two of you still messed up hard. I'm coming to join you two for the next world, and that's not debatable."

Xion was retreating into herself more and more as Lea spoke. So much for breaking her barrier, so much for Lea being a friend. "We've spent our entire lives fighting, Axel!" Roxas said. "We can handle ourselves fine!"

"I'm not talking about fights, Roxas!" Lea snapped. "Look at yourselves. Roxas, the whole reason you called me is because Xion isn't in a good place, and I can also tell that you aren't either. I'm worried about your mental health. Both of you." Roxas grit his teeth and narrowed his eyes, but he didn't snap back at Lea, at least not this time. "So if you'll let me finish: I'm joining you on the next world. As for what's after that, we'll see. Prove to me that you can handle yourselves, that the two of you will take care of one another and watch out for one another, and if you do that I'll come back to Twilight Town." He looked beside him at Isa. "You can handle things here, right?"

Isa closed his eyes. "As if I have a choice. Without a Keyblade Glider or Gummi Ship I'm stuck here either way."

"Roxas…" Roxas's eyes snapped up from the Gummiphone to Xion. That was the first time she'd said his name all day. "Maybe he's right. Look at us. We messed up. I honestly don't know if we can handle ourselves out there after all."

Her cheeks were stained by tears, her eyes puffy and red. His heart fell just looking at her. Closing his eyes and rubbing his arms across them to fight back his own tears, Roxas relented. His shoulders drooped and he spoke to Lea without taking his eyes off Xion. "Okay, Axel. You have yourself a deal. We'll show you how strong we can be."

"I really, truly hope that you do," Lea said in an uncharacteristically caring tone. "So what world should I meet you two at?"

Xion pulled out her own Gummiphone and opened up the app that Tron had installed before. It scanned the worlds around them for the Flood of Light and Xion's eyes widened when it dinged. She held up her phone to show Roxas, and his breath caught in his throat. Of all the places… Maybe this wouldn't be as emotionally stable a trip as he thought it'd be.

"Guys? Where am I flying to?"

Roxas looked back down at his phone, at Lea impatiently fidgeting in his seat. "The Destiny Islands," he said at last.

Lea's reaction was immediate, his arms falling to his side and eyes widening. "Roxas, are you sure about going there…?"

Roxas's jaw set, but he decided to ignore the question. Maybe he had to face the islands again sooner rather than later – yet another band-aid that needed ripping off. "We'll meet you at the beach, okay?"

**x-x-x**

The bright sun and cloudless sky were a stark contrast to the somber mood on the play island today. Normally Roxas would have jumped at the chance to go to the beach with Xion and Lea, but not today. Not with Xion in this mood, and especially not at  _this_  beach. The last time he was here felt like a lifetime ago. He hadn't returned since…since back then. Since the party after Xehanort was finally defeated. Since he disappeared right in front of them – in front of him.

It was nice at first: meeting the older Keyblade Masters, finally meeting Kairi face to face, and of course seeing Naminé again after what felt like so long. Most of all, he finally got to go to the beach with not only Lea and Xion but Hayner, Pence, and Olette as well. They'd spent the whole day on this shore, playing in the water, building sandcastles. No pretzels though, much to Hayner's dismay. Roxas had just been glad that both of his friend groups had gotten along, had blended together so seamlessly.

There had still been unpleasant, unsaid words between Roxas and Riku after everything that happened in the World That Never Was. Roxas knew Riku's story and why he did what he did by that point, but it hadn't made his feelings about Riku keeping him from saving Xion go away. And neither of them were surprised when Terra had picked up on the tense atmosphere between them, considering it was probably thick enough to cut with a knife. The race they had that evening had been Terra's suggestion, a way to relieve even just a bit of the tension. He'd butted his way into the race too, but Roxas hadn't minded. He had to admit, racing Riku across the beach was…nostalgic.

Roxas couldn't say when he felt it, but at some point there beneath the setting sun he felt a sudden warmness in his heart. Everyone else had to have felt it too; that boy touched so many hearts, after all. All action slowed to a halt on the beach as everyone looked out across the water, to the small isle with the paopu tree. To the two figures sitting on the tree hand in hand. And Roxas knew then, all of them on the beach that evening knew, that everything was just right.

He shouldn't have thought twice about it.

Roxas felt it before he saw it: the warmth around his heart faded away like a loved one slowly pulling back from their hug. Could the others feel that as they had felt their return? Roxas didn't know, because all his focus on what he felt at that moment. Relief and happiness quickly gave way to horror and denial and he ran forward calling his name. His breaths raced, his heartbeat pounded in his ears, but his desperate pleas meant nothing. And just like that, his other half faded away right in front of him.

The sound of light splashing brought Roxas back to the present. Xion's boots and socks were on the sand beside him, and Xion herself had stepped into the surf. She was crouched down, picking up seashells. The sight of such a familiar action brought a nostalgic smile to Roxas's face, even if it was something he had rarely actually seen her do in person. His own shoes may have been a bit harder to casually slip off than hers were, but he did so nonetheless so he could join her at the water.

Roxas crouched down to run his hands through the sand and surf beside her. "Mind if I butt in?"

Xion looked up in surprise, a clam shell slipping form her fingers. She gave him a sad smile before turning back to the water. "Oh, hey. Sorry, I thought you were lost in your head."

"I was, I guess," Roxas responded.

"I was too, but… Well, you know, me and seashells." She let out some awkward laughter. Forced.

Roxas responded in kind. "Yeah, you and seashells. Find any good ones?"

Xion brushed some sand off of a pink spiral shell. "Yeah, maybe."

"Well I'm glad to see you got her talking."

Heads turned at the newcomer's voice. He sat atop the wooden bridge that connected to the paopu isle, a spiky redhead clad in black. Lea tilted his sunglasses down to get a better look at Roxas and Xion, then hopped down onto the sand below as the two of them made their way back to dry land. Lea took his sunglasses off and clipped them onto the collar of his shirt.

"Axel, when did you get here?" Roxas asked while Xion gave him a hug; not her most energetic of hugs, but a hug nonetheless.

"Before you two, actually. I guess Twilight Town is closer to this world than Olympus. So I figured I'd stop by town and get us some transport before you two arrived. Boy let me tell you, finding a boat rental is a chore in a place where everyone already has boats."

"Transport?" Xion asked.

"Well sure. You can't expect to just fly across to the main island on our Gliders and not raise suspicion, can you?" That mental image did get a chuckle from Roxas and Xion, and Lea seemed to take that as a victory because his face brightened up considerably. "Alright, then let's go hit the streets and find that Keyhole." He began walking down the beach while waving over his shoulder for them to follow.

Roxas and Xion took a moment as they had to get their shoes back on, but soon enough they were trailing a few feet behind Lea. Heh, just like old times. Lea led them to the small dock on the island, where a motorboat just barely big enough for three people was resting. "Roxas help me out here, will ya?"

"Oh, uh, yeah." Roxas moved over to the robe tying the boat to the dock and started undoing it. He couldn't consciously remember ever working with boats before, but it was like his body remembered and he worked it as if he had a hundred times before. When the boat was all untied, he rolled up the rope and then looked up to see Lea giving him an odd look. "What is it?"

"Huh? Nothing." Lea looked away and held out a hand to help Xion onto the boat. Once she was on Roxas climbed on after, and then Lea kicked the boat away from the dock and started up the engine, and they were off.

Roxas's grip on the side of the boat pants tightened as steadily the main island came more and more into view, as the town came more and more into view –  _his_  town.

Sora's town.

**x-x-x**

The town on the Destiny Islands' main island wasn't large. It wasn't exactly small either, but it was the kind of place where if you didn't know someone then you knew someone else who knew them. There were a lot of family-run businesses, mom and pop shops and the like. A mall did exist but was only really frequented by the younger generation, when they weren't at school or playing on the little island across the bay. It wasn't very urbanized either; the buildings grew denser as you came further inland, but never to the point that it could comfortably be called a city. The technology level was also a few decades behind the norm in other worlds: they still had landline phones for example, and personal computers were rare.

Despite only coming to the islands a handful of times and always only for brief visits, Lea had picked up on all of this. After all, the Organization always had its members perform recon whenever they visited a new world. Even after he had betrayed them that habit hadn't vanished; as Axel he'd learned the ins and outs of the Destiny Islands' society while observing Kairi back before he– Well, that wasn't his proudest moment. The point was he knew his way around town.

As they moved through the streets, Lea wondered how much of this was familiar to Roxas and Xion. The few missions they had here in the old days – and he knew it was few because Xemnas wouldn't have risked them running into Kairi – had always only been to the play island. How much of the town did they recognize, even if they didn't realize they did? Roxas had undone the rope at the dock like it was second nature to him, no doubt because Sora had rowed his own boat out to the island every day.

Sora… Lea glanced back at Roxas with concern, but kept it brief so he wouldn't be found out. The kid's mood had definitely worsened just in the time since they spoke on the phone. Lea sighed and rubbed the back of his head. He knew this was going to happen as soon as he heard that their next stop was the Destiny Islands. Sora wasn't a topic that came up often, but whenever he did get mentioned Roxas tended to get into a funk like this. From what Roxas had told him about the stuff in Olympus, 'it's what Sora would do' was what Xion had said to get Roxas to go along with her plan. He didn't think she was intentionally leading him along, the girl was too sweet to be manipulative like that, but it was still honestly a pretty scummy thing for her to say even in the heat of the moment. Though then again, she was just as much a part of Sora as Roxas was. What happened to him probably did bother her too, it was just that her other issues were more prominent.

Yeah – 'other issues'. Now it was Xion's turn to get an over-the-shoulder look from Lea. He was definitely glad to see her hunting seashells when he found them on the play island, because he had to agree with Roxas's assessment, the girl was practically catatonic. How long had this puppet issue been plaguing her? In retrospect that explained a lot about the mornings she'd wake up late and in a sour or quiet mood. It made sense of course, but Lea must have been a pretty crappy friend if he couldn't see it before. Some good he did, wasn't he supposed to watch over them? And here he was berating them for not watching over each other. What a hypocrite.

Lea's eyes scanned the beach as they made their way down a street. That settled it: whether Roxas and Xion wanted to or not, as long as they were at the islands then he'd make a vacation out of it. In addition to proving to him that they could watch over each other, they needed time to just unwind and be kids again. God, they were both only fifteen. Kids shouldn't be going through all this.

They couldn't forget their first reason for being here, though: the Flood of Light was going to emerge and they had to find the Keyhole. Time to hound the locals.

A group of boys around Roxas and Xion's age was walking by, all dressed in matching yellow uniforms and with the blond kid in the front tossing a ball up and down. A sports team then, and judging by the exhaustion on their faces they just finished a game. Lea was about to call out to them but they noticed his group first. The blond kid elbowed an older redhead boy to get his attention, then gestured over to Lea – no, behind Lea. To Xion.

The blond ran up to them while waving his hand above his head. "Hey, Kairi! You're back already– Oh, sorry. Wrong girl."

"Yeah, um. Sorry about that," Xion said, and that was all she said.

The kids stood around in an awkward silence after that, so Lea took the initiative. "Wrong girl maybe, but it helps us all the same. We're friends of Kairi's, and I can see that you are too. You wouldn't happen to know where she is, would you? And-or Riku, too."

"Uh… They left a while ago and haven't come back, man. Sorry."

"Went to look for Sora, I think," the taller boy added. "Wonder what island he ran off to this time, ya?"

Oh, right. The King had mentioned that Riku and Kairi had left with Donald and Goofy. So their journey was still ongoing. Well this made things difficult. How were they supposed to find the Keyhole now if no one on the island knew what it even was?

The blond kid held out a hand to introduce himself. "Anyway, name's Tidus. My pal here is Wakka. So how do you know Riku and Kairi?"

Lea took Tidus's hand. He had a pretty strong grip, definitely an athlete. "I'm Lea, and this is Roxas and Xion." The two of them gave simple hellos and then when Tidus and Wakka gave them strange looks Lea sighed. "Sorry, a lot has happened recently so they're kind of in a funk."

"Really? Man, that sucks." Tidus threw his arm around Roxas's shoulder and held up the blue and white ball in his hand. "Well you seem like a pretty strong guy. Maybe some blitzball will cheer you up!"

Roxas slipped out of Tidus's grip. "Uh, maybe later. We do need to find–"

"Oh, right. How we know Riku and Kairi. Uh…" Lea hesitated. What was this specific island called again…? Motunui, that was it. It was the largest in a chain of other inhabited islands, like Besaid, and Luca, and… "We're from Kilika, and Xion here is Kairi's cousin."

"Oh, so that's why you look alike. That's a strong family resemblance, ya?" Wakka nodded sagely. "Just like Kairi's other cousin too."

That caught the attention of all three of them. "Other cousin?" Xion and Roxas asked at the same time.

Tidus snapped his fingers and nodded. "Oh, right! A blonde cutie who's been living with Kairi's folks the last few weeks. Man, why is every girl in that family a babe?"

Suddenly, Wakka frowned. "Wait, but come to think of it, wasn't Kairi adopted? So why do her cousins look just like her?"

Lea cut Wakka off there, grabbing both Xion and Roxas by the wrists and tugging them away from the group. "A blonde girl at Kairi's house! Got it, thanks!" Before the trio could grow any more suspicious, they ran off into the streets leaving Tidus and Wakka behind.

Lea came to a stop once they were well out of sight and earshot, and only then let go of Roxas and Xion. He turned to them and chuckled. "I had forgotten she lived here now." Both kids looked happier now that they had heard the news, even if just a little bit.

Roxas nodded. "Yeah, she decided to stick around after the party. Terra offered to let her live in Land of Departure too, but she wanted to stay with Kairi."

Xion tapped her chin as she thought. "Last time I spoke to her was just after we all finished our training with Master Aqua. She was worried that school here was starting soon, I wonder if that's come yet?"

"And lucky for us her being here means someone is around who knows what a Keyhole is. Well, come on." Lea jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at a jungle-covered hill behind him. "Kairi's dad is the mayor, so we're looking for the biggest and fanciest house on the island."

Xion and Roxas nodded and turned their heads to follow the road up the hill. Roxas's face had a smile on it once more, even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Alright, let's go see Naminé!"


	18. You Made a Good Other

Just like Lea had said, Mayor Braska's house was indeed the largest and fanciest one on the island. It wasn't large enough to be called a mansion, but Kairi's family was still very clearly well off. Standing there on the porch, looking at the front door and the wind chime that hung above his head, brought a sense of nostalgia to Roxas even if he'd never actually been to this place before. He recalled distant half-memories of a boy with messy brown hair running through town and up the hill, coming from his more humble home on the beach to this inland street where his two best friends lived. Sora's own family was hardly poor, but it was always so much cooler to play at the rich kids' homes. Riku's family was the wealthiest on the island even ahead of Kairi's, and he lived right next door to her – for a given definition of 'next door', considering all the yard space Mayor Braska had. Roxas glanced in that direction. He couldn't quite picture Riku's parents, but he wondered how they were handling their son leaving again so soon after he got back. At least Kairi had spent a year on the island between journeys.

Lea's hand on Roxas's shoulder brought his attention from Riku's home back to Kairi's, and then both Lea and Roxas looked to Xion. "Xion, would you mind stepping behind me a little?" Lea asked. He awkwardly rubbed his neck and looked away from her. "It's just, as long as Kairi's gone it'd probably be best if you're not the first person her folks see when they answer the door."

Xion took a second to respond to that, her face unreadable. But she eventually nodded and quietly said, "Yeah, you're right," then shuffled behind Lea's back, just barely poking out from behind him.

"Sorry, kiddo," Lea apologized before he turned back to the front door and taking a breath. "Alright, let's see how Naminé is doing." He rang the doorbell and waited.

"Yes?" The tanned woman who answered the door was middle-aged, her blonde hair cut to shoulder length and her eyes a vibrant green. Mayor Braska's wife – Kairi's mother. Just seeing her sent another nostalgic rush through Roxas. He didn't actually recognize her, not really, but the other side of his heart did. He glanced at Xion beside him, and she gave him a slight nod. She was feeling the same thing.

"Good afternoon, um, Mrs. Braska?" Lea fumbled, unsure of what her name actually was.

"Mahha," she corrected, clearly a little wary of this strange man at her doorstep.

"Mahha, sorry," Lea apologized with a bow of his head. "My name is Lea. I know this may sound weird since we're strangers and all, but we're friends of Kairi's."

At mention of her daughter's name, Mahha crossed her arms and watched Lea warily. "From another world?" she asked.

Well  _that_  was a surprising thing for her to say. Lea lost his composure for a moment at that question, but to his credit recovered quickly. "I guess it makes sense Kairi would have told you about that, huh? Yeah, you're right on the money."

Still wary, Mahha glanced from Lea to the faces behind him. When her gaze fell on Roxas her eyes widened and then her expression and stance both softened. Clearly she must have recognized Sora in his face. "You're Roxas, aren't you?" Roxas almost jumped at the question. Another surprise! Just how much did she know? "Naminé's twin brother, right? She's spoken of you a lot."

Roxas chuckled awkwardly and looked down at his shuffling feet. Naminé's twin brother, huh? Yeah…that was something they'd talked about after their reunion during the beach party. To really establish what their relationship was to one another, since they'd barely actually spoken before. Naminé was the one who brought it up, said she'd seen him like that since she first learned about him, and then freaked out worrying he'd be creeped out or offended. But he hadn't been. No way, never with her. And it made sense anyway, given they were both born from the same incident, and hey, they were even both blonde. So he'd taken the label in stride and officially declared himself Naminé's twin brother on the beach that evening – as long as he got to be the older twin.

Roxas looked up at Mahha, met her in the eyes. "Yes ma'am, that's me," he said with a nod.

"It's nice to finally meet you," Mahha said with a smile, and in that heartfelt expression Roxas could see the resemblance to Kairi. Even if there was no blood relation that smile, the way her eyes squinted just a bit as her lips raised, was undeniable.

When Mahha's gaze turned to Xion, still sort of hiding behind Lea, her smile did falter. Long moments of silence passed between the two as Mahha had to slowly register who it was she was looking at. Kairi dyed her hair? No, of course not. No mother would mistake their daughter for someone else, no matter how strong the resemblance. Mahha's smile returned, but it was a more somber one this time. "And you must be Xion. I've heard a lot about you too."

Xion awkwardly pushed some hair behind her ear. "It's nice to meet you, ma'am," she said with her head low.

Even Xion's voice seemed to hit something inside Mahha, and she had to steady herself before continuing. "Lea, Roxas, Xion. What can I do for the three of you? Is Kairi alright?"

"As far as we know, she and Riku are doing just fine," Lea replied. "They've got a wonderful knight and wizard watching over them, the same duo who watched over Sora."

Mahha chuckled, but her motherly concern was still plain as day. "Well if they managed that handful, then I guess the kids are in good hands. So what brings you here to the islands?"

"Well, we're on the islands on Keyblade business. But we're at your home today because, well…" Lea looked up at one of the second floor windows.

"Is Naminé home?" Xion asked. The sudden question surprised both Roxas and Lea; she'd been so quiet.

"Yes, she should be." Mahha looked back over her shoulder at a staircase against the far wall of the front room. "School is starting soon so she's probably making sure everything is ready. The poor girl is so nervous, and I can't blame her. Not only her first day of high school, but her first day of school ever."

"We already dealt with that back in Twilight Town." Lea jabbed a hand over his shoulder, pointing to both Roxas and Xion. "Something tells me Naminé isn't as much of a wreck as these two numbskulls were."

Xion pouted. "I was  _not_  a wreck!"

Roxas couldn't hide his grin, even despite the mood that had hung over him since arriving on the islands. "Xion, you missed the train because you kept checking and re-checking your bag."

Mahha shrugged a little helplessly. "Whether she's really keeping together or just good at hiding it, I think it would do Naminé some good to see some friends. Especially the two people she talks about the most." She smiled at both Roxas and Xion and then stepped aside, motioning for her three guests. "Please, come in. Naminé's room is the second on your right upstairs."

"Thanks. We won't be a bother." Lea led Roxas and Xion inside and up the stairs. It was a house that was just as nice on the inside as it was on the outside, and Mahha clearly did a thorough job of taking care of it. As they climbed the stairs Roxas looked at some pictures hanging on the wall, some were of Kairi ranging from when she was first adopted up to the present, and some were of Mahha with a man who he guessed was Mayor Braska.

And there it was, the second room on the right. Lea stood aside for Roxas or Xion to be the ones to open the door, and Xion was the first to reach it. She knocked once but didn't wait before opening the door, revealing a tidy room with a lot of white furniture, and a familiar blonde girl fidgeting in front of a mirror.

Naminé wasn't wearing her familiar sundress, and was instead dressed in a button-up white shirt, a sky blue skirt, and navy blue knee-high socks. A tie that matched the skirt was in her hands. It looked like a school uniform, which fit with what Mahha had said. She didn't notice them at first, so focused on her reflection with a nervous anxiety clear on her face. She tried tying the tie, but when she couldn't get it right she tossed it onto her bed. Only then did she notice the trio reflected behind her in the mirror, and jumped in surprise before spinning around with wide eyes and an even wider smile.

"Roxas! Xion!"

Naminé dashed over to them and Xion held out her arms to meet her. The two embraced in a deep hug; even though they'd only spoken once in the old days, they had hit it off immediately during the reunion party on the beach. Behind Lea and Roxas, Naminé was probably Xion's closest friend now. Seeing Naminé could only do Xion good after what happened in Olympus.

"It's so good to see you!" Naminé exclaimed happily after pulling out of the hug, and then she turned to Roxas and embraced him, much to his own awkward surprise. "And you too, Roxas!"

"It's been a little while, hasn't it?" Roxas asked as he pat Naminé on the back. "Looks like you're starting school soon?"

Naminé pulled back from the hug and fiddled with her shirt collar. "Yes. Mahha has been very kind and helpful getting me settled, and now it's time to take the next step." She wrapped her arms around her abdomen. "But I didn't expect to be so nervous."

"That's normal," Xion said with a slight smile. "But the uniform looks good on you! Twilight Town's has blazers, but I think those would be too much for this weather."

Naminé looked down at herself and tugged on the ends of her skirt. "Thanks. Kairi went with me to buy it right before she and Riku left."

"Oh yeah, how has Riku been?"

" _Ahem_." Behind the group, Lea loudly cleared his throat. He placed his hands on his hips and leaned forward. "What, don't I get a hello too?"

"Oh! Hello, Lea. It's good to see you too."

"Likewise, Naminé. I'm glad to see you've settled in here. You may want to expand your color palette though."

Naminé rubbed her arm and looked around the room, at the white bed, white dresser, and white everything else. They were all new stuff too, not hand-me-downs. The only color in the room was a cup full of colored pencils at her desk…and of course the drawings hanging from every inch of wall space. "I didn't want to be a bother and would have been fine with the guest room, but Mahha and Braska both insisted on treating me like part of the family and went out to buy all this. They've gone further then they needed to."

Lea waved a hand. "Nonsense. You're their daughter now just as much as Kairi is, and so they're going to treat you no worse than her. Get used to it, girlie."

Naminé's face flushed and she shuffled her feet. "So, well, um… What brings you three to the islands?"

"Keyblade business. Did Radiant Garden catch you up to speed about the Flood of Light?"

"Ienzo called me to talk about it, yes." And then her eyes widened as the realization caught up to her. "Oh no, don't tell me–" But their grim expressions did the talking for them. Naminé nervously glanced out her window.

"Anyway, some…other stuff…happened on the last world they went to," and Lea looked at Roxas and Xion, who had both gone back into 'moping mode' now that he brought it up. "So I decided to join in and keep an eye on them."

"Stuff?" Naminé raised an eyebrow and gave Roxas and Xion a worried but curious look.

Xion shrugged. "It's…kind of a long story," she said. "Don't worry about it, really."

Now Naminé gave Lea a look, and he nodded at whatever silent question she was asking him. She sighed and shrugged. "I…guess I won't push. But going back a bit, you're here about the Flood of Light?"

"Yeah. You wouldn't happen to know where the Keyhole is here, would you? The faster these two can do their thing, the better."

At this, Naminé bit her lip. Her hair bounced lightly as she shook her head, and the mood in the room had already dampened before she spoke. "Sorry, I don't. I don't know where to even begin searching for it."

 _Great…_  Roxas slouched forward at the news, but honestly, what had they been expecting? Naminé wouldn't have been any more aware of the Keyhole's location than the rest of them. But she was their only real shot, since no one else on the island even knew what a Keyhole  _was_.

The room had gone quiet and the atmosphere heavy. "So what if Naminé doesn't know? We can still find it, we got time and all of us know our way around here. Right, guys?" No response. Lea grunted under his breath as he looked around the room, clearly trying to think of something to lighten the mood. His eyes fell on one of Naminé's many drawings. He walked over to it and reached up to pluck it from its place on the wall, then thought better of touching her things and simply tapped the paper to get their attention. "Hey Naminé, who's this drawing of? It's no one I recognize."

Even if the question was only addressed to Naminé, curiosity got the better of Roxas and Xion and they glanced at the drawing too. It was a young woman neither of them knew either, with dark skin and darker hair. She was dressed in traditional islander clothes, a kind that no one living on the Destiny Islands had worn in centuries.

"She's a hero from one of the old legends on this island." Naminé stepped up beside Lea and pointed out another drawing next to the girl, one of a green stone floating through the ocean. "A long time ago, the heart of the world went missing. The world started to die because of it; fish vanishing from the ocean and so on. This girl found the heart and crossed the ocean to return it, while learning who she was along the way."

Roxas frowned. That story sounded really familiar, and not just in the 'I heard it once in passing' sort of way, either. It must have been a story that Sora had been pretty immersed in during his childhood, for it to still affect Roxas like this despite his memories of Sora's life being foggy at best.

"Sounds kind of familiar," Xion commented.

Roxas looked over to her. "You too?"

She nodded, as much to herself as to Roxas. "I think it was an important story to Sora."

"Yeah. Just what I was thinking." Lea and Naminé had turned to the two of them, so Roxas continued. "I think that Sora really liked that story as a kid. I think, maybe, that the adventure part of it was probably a big part of why he wanted to go see other worlds. He wanted to go on a journey and see wonderful sights like the girl in the story did."

"It does sound like his kind of thing, doesn't it?" Naminé giggled.

Despite himself, Roxas couldn't help but smile at that too. That was the first time he'd had a positive feeling associated with Sora since he arrived on Destiny Islands. Damn it, even when people were trying to deal with him being gone, somehow Sora  _still_  found a way to cheer them up.

Naminé held her arm behind her back. As if she was reading his mind, she said, "He really was one of a kind, wasn't he?" Was it written on his face?

"Yeah, he was," Roxas said. And then suddenly, a thought occurred to him. His mind wandered to Mahha downstairs, and how just looking at Xion was enough to make it clear how much she missed Kairi. What about Sora's parents? How much did they know about what happened to him, and what were they going through right now that he'd left again? "Naminé, have you gone to see his family at all?"

The question visibly surprised her, and after a moment she shook her head. "No, I haven't. I hadn't even thought about it." She held her hands in front of her, maybe a sign that now she felt guilty for not doing so.

Beside Roxas Xion bit at her nail in thought. "Do you think we should?"

Roxas let out a breath. "…I dunno. I don't want to upset her by showing her, you know, this." He gestured at his face. "But then again, Mahha wasn't too bothered by you…"

"I say it's a great idea!" Lea said, walking over and slapping his hand down on Roxas's shoulder.

"Y-You do?" Roxas sputtered.

"Sure. A talk with his mom, a walk around his house? It might be just the thing you need to get you out of this Sora-related funk. It's a heck of a lot better than moping around, at least."

"I think I agree," Naminé said. "I don't really know what's been bothering you, Roxas, but if it's about Sora then it definitely wouldn't hurt to stop by his house."

You know what? It didn't sound like an awful idea, no. He was definitely nervous at the prospect of it, but Lea and Naminé were right. "Alright then, let's head down to Sora's house. Oh, and…" He turned toward Naminé with an apologetic look on his face. "Sorry this visit was a short one, Naminé. Let's all hang out tomorrow maybe?"

Naminé beamed. "Sure! I'll be here."

**x-x-x**

Contrary to Riku and Kairi living inland, Sora's home was on the beach. It was right across from the play island, in fact. It was a more humble home than the large one they had just visited, but that wasn't to say Sora's family was in a bad state financially or anything. They had just what they needed to get by, and they were happy with that. Sora's father was a fisherman, and his mother would sometimes volunteer at the elementary school. Roxas could remember that much, but he couldn't recall their names or what they looked like. When he asked Xion she wasn't able to provide much more than that either.

And so Lea, Roxas, and Xion found themselves on a stranger's doorstep for the second time that day. This time it was Roxas's turn to be mostly out of sight, hiding behind Lea as Lea rang the doorbell. The first thing Roxas noticed about the woman who answered the door was her familiar blue eyes. The second was her hair color, black; at this Roxas glanced over to Xion, who had noticed as well and was inquisitively tugging at a lock of her own hair. So that's where the color had come from.

"Can I help you?" the woman – Sora's mother – asked.

Lea cleared his throat. "Hello, ma'am. Sorry to intrude this evening. We're, um… Well, we're friends of Sora's."

The woman's eyes shot wide at that, and she pushed the door further open to step outside. "Do you have news?!"

Lea winced at that. "S-Sorry, no. Riku and Kairi are the ones out looking for him, and we haven't kept up with them."

"Kairi? But I thought–" She trailed off and gave Xion a curious look. "I thought Kairi had dyed her hair, but you're not her?"

Xion shook her head, a sad expression on her face. "I'm sorry, and why I'm not is a long story. How much do you know about Sora's journeys?"

"More than I'd like, less than I should," she said with a wry smile. "But he did tell me about some things when he came home with Riku before…" She locked eyes with Roxas and Lea stepped aside as she moved forward. Before Roxas could react Sora's mother had taken his face in her hands and examined him with a distant, sad look in her eyes. "You look so much like him." She lowered her hands and bowed her head. "It's nice to finally meet you, Roxas."

Roxas's chest had contracted the moment the woman had touched him. His heart had ached, ringing out with a feeling so much like the one he associated with Twilight Town: the sense of being home. At a loss for words, Roxas simply nodded in response to her.

Sora's mother looked between Lea, Xion, and Roxas and then gestured inside. "My name is Aoi. Please, come inside. Make yourselves at home."

"I'm Lea, and this is Xion, and it looks like you know Roxas." Lea was the first one to pass through the front door, and he motioned for the others to follow.

The front door led right into the kitchen, decorated with beach paraphernalia: a trio of surfboards hung on the walls, sand in glass bottles sat on shelves, and a fisherman's net hung from the ceiling. Roxas picked up a framed photo that was sitting on the kitchen table, one of Sora sitting on the shoulders of his father, a man who looked just like Sora would if he were twenty years older, with the same spiky brown hair and goofy grin.

"My husband's on a fishing trip, so it's just us here." Aoi sat down first and motioned for the others to follow her lead. "Sora told me a bit about you Roxas, but I was under the impression that Kairi's Nobody was that pretty young girl who was staying with Mahha. So I hope you don't mind me asking, but who are you, Xion?"

Xion winced. "That's…a long story. Sora didn't know about me yet when he was here last. In some ways, I'm a lot like Roxas."

Roxas stared down at his hands in his lap as he started talking. "It started seven days after I was born…"

The next few hours were spent with Roxas and Xion, and every now and then Lea, explaining everything their stories in full and how they were connected to Sora. By the time they finished with their reunion at the Keyblade Graveyard, night had fallen. Aoi was sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with a napkin.

"Oh, Sora… I always knew you were something special, young man…" Despite her distraught tone, there was a smile on her face. She sniffed once more and stood up, walking over to Roxas and Xion and then, to their surprise, dropping to her knees and embracing both in a hug right there on the spot. "And the two of you. You've been through so, so much, and you're just kids. Just as much my kids as Sora."

Roxas's heart tore in two at those words, but in a good way if that was even possible. He could feel that nostalgia, that sense of home, bubbling up from the other side of his heart and knew that wherever he was, Sora wanted nothing more at that moment than to come home and hug his mother. And so he did. Roxas returned the hug, holding tight onto Aoi as sobs of relief and sadness both worked his way up his throat. Was this something like how Sora felt when he had to say goodbye to Hayner, Pence, and Olette? Maybe, or maybe not. Right now all Roxas knew was that the part of him connected to Sora was letting everything out. And beside him, Xion was doing the same. Both of them were clinging to Aoi and crying into her shoulders as she held them tightly.

"I've felt…so empty. So  _hollow_ ," Roxas said. "Ever since he disappeared there was a hole in my heart that just hasn't gone away." And coming here had brought it all the forefront.

"I know. I know." Aoi pulled back to look Xion and Roxas both in the eyes in turn. She wiped at her wet cheeks and they did the same. "I feel exactly the same. And no matter how hard it may have been for you to come here to this world, I'm glad that you did. I'm glad that I met you both. Roxas. Xion."

Xion nodded as she squeezed her eyes shut and some more tears streaked down her cheeks. Her hands clutched at her chest. "Sora misses you, Aoi. He misses you so much, wherever he is."

"Then let him know I miss him, too. And that I love him, and that once he comes back I'm never letting him go again."

Xion sniffled. "I think he knows."

Aoi stood up and wiped her face with her sleeve. "Well, it's getting a little late. I wasn't expect dinner for four, but I'll put something together. And feel free to spend the night here, as many nights as you want before you leave."

Lea looked up. "You don't have to–"

Aoi held a hand up, silencing any protests then and there. "I do. You're family, right?"

Roxas grinned, and from the way Aoi looked at him, he wondered if it was a Sora grin. "Thank you, Aoi. Um… Would you mind if I, um, saw Sora's room?"

Aoi didn't even miss a beat. "Of course, Roxas. Take all the time you need."

Roxas stood up and bowed his head. "Thank you."

His heart knew where Sora's room was without needing to ask, and his body climbed the stairs on autopilot as if he had done so his entire life. When Roxas slowly opened the door, the dark room looked completely untouched. His head rushed at the sight, his chest tightened again. He examined the fishing harpoons leaning against the walls, all the toys and even dirty clothes scattered across the floor were in the same place.

Sitting down on the bed, Roxas gazed out the window to the play island across the water. "Please…" he whispered. He ran his hand atop the sheets and rested his head against his arm on the windowsill.

How was this okay? How was this allowed? Here everyone was, happy and alive, but at the expense of the best of all of them. Forget the Flood of Light, Roxas should be out there with Riku, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy. He should be at the forefront in fact. He should be trying to find a way to save Sora! If he had the power of waking–

…

… _No_ , Roxas berated himself. No, the power of waking wasn't what he needed. It was what had put them here in the first place. The power to free a heart from its sleep, to traverse hearts to reach worlds. It would work because it had worked for Sora, he'd brought back all the guardians of light with it at the Graveyard and then brought Kairi back a second time too, but it would cost Roxas everything just like it had Sora. And Roxas would be willing to do it! Sora had saved him, and he wanted to return the favor. But he couldn't put Sora and the others through this pain he felt right now. Couldn't put Lea through it. Couldn't put Xion through it.

"You helped me find my way back here…" Roxas whispered to no one. "So please, Sora…"

"Please come back..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I desperately wanted to have Yuna be Kairi’s sister, but I’m keeping this canon-compliant so Yuna is a little treasure hunting fairy instead of living on Destiny Islands.
> 
> Mahha’s name comes from translating “Lenne”, a character from FFX-2 who resembles Yuna, into Al Bhed. Unfortunately Braska’s Al Bhed wife didn’t actually have a name in FFX so I had to come up with one. That’s not to say she is Lenne though, just named after her.
> 
> Aoi is Japanese for blue, following from Sora being Japanese for sky.


	19. Destiny's Fire

Roxas had plenty of trouble getting to sleep that night, but once he finally was in dreamland he got a surprisingly good rest. Maybe the stress of it all finally got to him, or maybe all the crying wore him out, or perhaps it was the part of him that was Sora reacting to being on the islands. Regardless of what caused him to crash like that, by the time the sun was up in Sora's room Roxas woke up feeling the best he had since this whole adventure started. Yes, Sora's room; it had been awkward, but Aoi had insisted. And perhaps that was another reason he'd slept so well.

Too bad the bed wasn't big enough for two people, though.

Unlike Lea who was on the couch downstairs, Xion had also ended up sleeping in Sora's room. Roxas looked down at her laying on an inflatable mattress that Aoi had brought in. It was softer than the floor certainly, but Roxas felt bad because it still wasn't as comfortable as the bed would have been. But Xion had told him to have the bed, and both had been too tired to argue.

Roxas watched as the sunlight fell on Xion and she stirred, a mop of messy black hair all that was visible above the sheets. She fought against the light by pulling her head further under the sheets, but it was futile and she knew it. With a soft groan Xion pushed herself up into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes.

Roxas crossed his legs and propped his chin up with his hand. "Morning, sleepyhead."

"Morning," Xion replied while stifling a yawn. After she wiped the sleep from her face and then took a moment to look around the room, remembering where they were, she looked back at him. "Are you doing okay?"

What a thing to ask first thing in the morning. But the way she was looking at him, the concern evident on her face, stopped Roxas from quipping about her asking such a thing before breakfast. "Yeah, actually. Better than yesterday for sure." He glanced out the window, toward the play island across the water. It was so clear outside that it was like he could reach out and touch the island. "I had a lot of trouble last night when I came up here…I kind of, broke down, I guess. Next thing I knew Aoi was beside me with her hand on my back."

"That's right, she did leave me and Lea for a little bit," Xion said with a bit of realization in her voice.

Roxas turned back to Xion. "Aoi and I talked all the way until you came in a little while later. About Sora, and about stupid stuff. Like how Sora would always talk loudly in a pirate accent when he rowed his boat out to the play island."

Xion held a hand to her mouth as she giggled. "He did do that, didn't he?"

Roxas looked around the room, at all of Sora's belongings, with a sad smile. "That talk helped me a lot. I'm not over it – I don't know if I'll  _ever_  be 'over it' – but I feel a lot better now." As he was talking Xion was glancing into a mirror that had been in one of Sora's piles of junk and combing through her hair with her fingers. "What about you?" Roxas asked. "Did you…have any nightmares?"

Xion's hand had gradually slowed as he spoke, until it came to a full stop at the last word. She set the mirror down in her lap and looked at Roxas almost apologetically. "I wish I could say no, I really do." The way Roxas's heart fell at those words must have been plain on his face, because she hurried to add, "They weren't the worst I've ever had, and I think that's because I was in the room with you." She glanced down at her hands as she twined her fingers together. "But 'not the worst' doesn't mean they weren't bad. My scars did kind of get torn open all over again."

"Xion…" Roxas slid off of the bed and down beside her onto the inflatable mattress. He wrapped a hand around her shoulder and held her tight. "Well, we'll work on cheering you up, then. After all, Naminé is here."

Xion looked back up at him, and the morning sun combined with the way she looked at him made Roxas's breath catch in his throat. "Naminé's here…and you too, Roxas," she said with a smile.

"I– Uh– Y-Yeah," Roxas fumbled.

Xion giggled again and climbed up to her feet. She stretched her arms above her head and made a satisfied noise as she did so. Then she paused, sniffed, and tilted her head. "Do you smell that?"

Roxas sniffed the air as he stood up. "Smells like…bacon? I guess Aoi is cooking breakfast. What time even is– Eleven?!" Roxas's jaw dropped as he looked at the clock on Sora's desk. So much for thinking that he was an early riser for once – talk about sleeping in! He sheepishly rubbed his neck as he looked back at Xion. "I guess it's more like she's making brunch."

Xion shrugged and gestured toward the door. "Come on, let's go get ready. Remember, we've got a day with Axel and Naminé!"

As Roxas and Xion turned to the door, they didn't realize it was open a crack, and just barely missed the bright red hair moving out of the way. Their heart to heart, the first step on proving themselves able to face their fears and watch over each other as Lea wanted, had not gone unnoticed.

**x-x-x**

By the time Roxas, Xion, and Lea had showered, gotten dressed, and eaten Aoi's wonderful home-cooked brunch, morning had become noon. Fresh, rested, and bellies full, the three of them once again made their way up the hills of Destiny Islands toward Naminé's home. As they came up the road to the mayor's house, they were somewhat surprised at the sight on the front porch. It wasn't so surprising that Naminé was outside waiting for them, but rather what she was wearing: she was clad in the Destiny Islands school uniform once again, and once again sans tie. Moreover, her hair was tied into an almost sporty ponytail by a light blue ribbon.

Lea let out a low whistle as they caught her attention. "Naminé, I'm liking the look! Why the school uniform though?"

"Thank you, Lea," Naminé said with a smile. She looked down at herself and turned around as she examined the outfit. "I'm just trying to get comfortable. I always wore that dress, and since I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in this once school starts, I want to be used to it."

"Hey, makes sense to me." Lea pointed to the back of his head and then nodded at her. "And the hairdo?"

Xion moved a bit behind Naminé to examine it. It was almost alien to see her with a different hairstyle, especially when 'sporty' was never a word you'd use to describe her. "That ribbon is pretty, Naminé!"

Naminé's face turned bright pink while her fingers fidgeted with the ribbon. "Thanks, Xion. Um, Riku gave it to me after I got settled in. A housewarming present, he called it."

Lea's eyebrows shot up at that. Ohoho, a gift from Riku was it? Well, well, if that wasn't wonderful fuel to tease Riku with the next time they saw him. As Xion and Naminé continued chatting, Lea glanced over to Roxas who gave him a look. The kid was thinking the same thing, and he didn't even need to say words to make that much clear. And moreover, that Roxas was even in a state of mind to think about that was a win in Lea's book. He sure as heck wasn't yesterday.

"Lea?" Naminé approached Lea from the side and peered up at him, one hand gripping her other arm behind her back.

Lea blinked and glanced down at her. "You say something? Sorry. I musta zoned out."

The slightest of frowns tugged at her lips. "I was asking what you wanted to do today. You said you guys would come 'hang out' with me, but I don't even know what the plan is."

Now it was Lea's turn to be embarrassed. He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck while averting his gaze. He hadn't actually thought further than spending the day trying to get Roxas and Xion to feel better. "Well, uh, what do teenagers normally do around here?"

Naminé bit her lip and looked down the road, toward the more densely-packed buildings further inland. Clearly she didn't actually know how to answer Lea's question. It would seem that her more outgoing appearance was still only an appearance. "I guess there's the mall…?"

"Mall?" Xion asked. Her question almost made Lea do a double-take before he realized that Twilight Town didn't actually have one of those.

"A bunch of shops; sort of like the Tram Common, but all in one big building." Lea clapped his hands together. "Hey, sounds good to me! You know the way, Naminé?" Not that he didn't with all the scouting of the islands he'd done in the past, but letter to let the kids lead.

"It's… Well, 'downtown' isn't the right word, but it's that sort of area."

"And you've been to this place?" Roxas asked.

Naminé nodded. "Once or twice, with Riku and Kairi. Not since they've left though. But I remember the way there: it's down the road, maybe a twenty minute walk."

"Simple enough directions! Roxas, Xion, you two mind leading the way?"

The two kids glanced at each other and made sounds of confusion under their breaths before turning back to Lea. "Shouldn't we be looking for the Keyhole, Axel?" Roxas asked.

Lea leaned his head back and crossed his arms over his chest. Yeah, of course. It's not like he had forgotten after all; that was the whole reason that the Destiny Islands were the specific world they had come to. But they could hit two birds with one stone here. "We will be. As we spend our day just having fun and winding down across the island, at the mall and wherever else today takes us, we'll all keep an eye out for the Keyhole, too." More unsure glances were shared between Roxas and Xion, and so with a sigh Lea planted his hands on their shoulders. "I know that's our priority, but remember the other reason we're here, you two. You need to prove to me you can emotionally handle all this and won't go catatonic on each other. So we'll do both. Got it memorized?"

Even if he wasn't looking at her at the moment, Lea could practically  _feel_ the worried look Naminé was giving the three of them with those words. That's right, they'd kind of skipped over the subject yesterday. She needed to know too.

When Roxas and Xion finally relented, Lea gave them gentle shoves. "So like I said, you mind leading the way?"

"Um, sure…" Xion glanced down the road. "Just follow this for a few minutes?" She and Roxas started walking at a casual pace, but Lea didn't follow.

Beside him, Naminé's look of concern hadn't relented. "Lea, what did you mean by them 'emotionally handling' this?"

Lea sighed again, and as he started following Xion and Roxas he kept a few yards between them and kept his voice low. This wasn't exactly a secret, but the less they heard him talk about this the better. That way it wouldn't be on their minds as much. And besides, they wouldn't want Naminé to worry about them.

"Roxas and Xion were both in a pretty bad way yesterday, Naminé. Some bad stuff happened to Xion in Olympus that reopened still-healing wounds with Xehanort, and then coming to this world just brought all of Roxas's feelings about Sora to the forefront."

Naminé bit her lip as she listened, but said nothing.

"I'm trying to put on a happy face so they'll not worry about it as much. This trip is just as much about proving to me that they can watch out for each other and handle this adventure as it is about stopping the Flood of Light."

Naminé's brow furrowed a bit. "You know that won't–" Lea cut her off with his hand held up.

"I know that won't solve the underlying issue. But baby steps, you know? So for today, Naminé, can you do me a favor? Help me keep an eye on both of them. Let's see how stable they are, and how much they enjoy themselves."

"…Okay, Lea." Naminé nodded, and a smile tugged on her lips. "You can count on me."

Lea grinned and ruffled her hair. "Thanks, kiddo."

They quickened their pace to catch up to Roxas and Xion, and the four made small talk as they continued further inland and further into town. The buildings steadily grew denser as they moved from the neighborhoods into the commercial district; like Naminé said it wasn't exactly urban enough to be called 'downtown', but it was pretty reminiscent of Market Street, if less crowded. After just about twenty minutes had passed they came upon the mall, kind of standing out amongst the mom and pop stores around it. A billboard near the entrance labeled it as 'Sugar Fields Mall' accompanied by a picture of the fake-smiling face of a businessman with eerily familiar silver-white hair.

"'Sugar Fields'?" Xion asked while looking around. There sure wasn't any sugarcane here.

"I was confused too until Riku explained it to me," Naminé said. She gestured to the businessman on the billboard. "Riku's family got rich off of the sugar trade a few generations ago, and they own the land the mall's built on." Oh, so that guy was Riku's old man? Now that she mentioned it, the resemblance was there. "They own most of the land in the Destiny Islands, actually. The smaller islands like Besaid and Kilika do have people living there, but they're a lot less populated than Motunui and used primarily for sugar plantations."

Roxas tapped his chin with a hum. "This is all vaguely familiar. I think Tidus's father has a problem with Riku's family owning so much, for some reason." All Naminé could respond to that with was a shrug, which Roxas mimicked in defeat. "I wish Sora's memories were clearer."

Lea slapped Roxas in the back and he nearly toppled over from it. "Enough worrying about middle-aged men and their bickering! Some on, let's see what this place is all about."

While Lea had seen Sugar Fields Mall from the outside when he had scouted the Destiny Islands for the Organization, he'd never been inside. To his surprise, it wasn't really 'inside.' The stores were all indoors, but the mall itself with its benches, potted plants, and other standard mall scenery was all open air. He supposed it must have been because the islands had such nice weather year-round; the mall he was used to from Radiant Garden was completely enclosed, but winter was cold there.

And so as Lea insisted the four of them spent the next few hours just enjoying their time, but keeping an eye out around every corner for signs of the Keyhole. And their first stop, again at Lea's insistence, was a shop imaginatively named 'Game!' with the font of the sign designed to look blocky and pixelated. But when they entered the shop Lea's good mood quickly faded as he slouched over in disappointment.

"This isn't a  _game store_ , it's an arcade!" Naminé and Xion moved past Lea as he moped at the entrance, looking at the nearby Fix-It Felix Jr. cabinet with disappointment. He kicked at the floor and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I was hoping to pick up something for our PlayPlus."

Beside Lea, Roxas looked around at the arcade with a little bit of interest. "The islands' technology seems a couple decades behind Twilight Town's. I doubt they have any home consoles, let alone PlayPlus." He gently pat Lea on the back in faux sympathy. "Don't worry, we've still got that unopened Wall Street Ninja waiting at home. We'll play it when this is all over."

Uh, yeah, 'unopened'. Lea coughed and looked away. He didn't have the heart to tell Roxas about that all-night game session he had a few days ago.

"Roxas, Lea, look at this!" Naminé called over to them from a little ways away, where she and Xion stood beside a large screen with a silver pad on the floor in front of it, and on the pad were several colored buttons meant to be stepped on. "It's some kind of dancing game. I'm trying to convince Xion to play."

Lea rubbed his chin as he watched the bright lights flash on the title screen. "Really? You interested, Xion?"

Xion shook her head and waved her hands in front of her. "I'm fine, really! There's so many people here–"

Lea propped one hand on his hip. "So? You're too good of a dancer to embarrass yourself!"

Naminé clasped her hands together. "Please, Xion? You've told me about your dance classes over the Gummiphone, but I want to see the results myself!" She turned to Roxas. "Don't you too? You know she'd be great!"

Called on the spot, Roxas all but jumped in surprise. But when he responded, he was completely confident in his words. "Absolutely. Xion could win the high score without breaking a sweat, I'm sure of it."

The arcade wasn't very brightly lit, but it didn't need to be for them to know that Xion's face was turning bright pink from all the compliments, and Roxas tipped her over the edge. "Alright, alright! I'll try the game!"

As Xion stepped onto the dance pad, Lea hid a grin. What a way to get her confidence up.  _Naminé, you are a lot more sly than I give you credit for._

Xion inserted some munny into the machine, and with very little warning a chiptune pop song began blasting out the speakers as a series of colored arrows flashed by on the screen. But even with such an abrupt start, Xion didn't miss a beat. Soon enough Lea, Roxas, and even the reserved Naminé were cheering and clapping enough to catch the attention of some of the arcade's other customers.

Fifteen minutes later and Xion was leaning back on a bench as she rested the nice, cold plastic of a smoothie cup against her sweat-slick face. "That was…something," she muttered.

Naminé giggled between sips of her own paopu smoothie. "You got the high score, just like Roxas said you would!"

"I didn't want to attract a crowd though."

"And you still nailed it despite everyone watching! Way to go, girl!" Lea clapped his hands while half an ice cream sandwich hung from his mouth. He swallowed the rest and tossed the wrapper into a nearby trashcan like it was a basketball. "Alright, where to next?"

After that musical showing, their next stop at Sugar Fields Mall was at Roxas's insistence. A sports goods store seemed perhaps out of place for him, but he'd gone in hoping to find something to repair or outright replace the rickety skateboard Hayner had given him as a hand-me-down, everyone was surprised to see that the hot item at the shop was a familiar blue foam bat. An entire wall was absolutely covered in Struggle bats of various shapes and sizes.

Roxas picked one off the rack and gave it a test swing. "Since when was Struggle on the islands?"

Beside him Xion's arm glowed with white nothingness as she replicated a Struggle bat from Twilight Town and held it up to compare with the one Roxas had picked up. The two bats looked identical in every way…until Xion caught sight of an engraving on the handle of the shop's. She'd seen that same logo in Twilight Town, at both the bistro and the outdoor theater: McDuck Enterprises. "Did Mr. McDuck introduce Struggle to the islands?"

"That's cultural appropriation," Lea quipped.

"Well well, if it isn't Kairi's cute cousins! And friends, of course." The group turned at the familiar voice as a mop of messy blond hair approached them. Tidus wiggled his eyebrows at Xion and Naminé, and Lea was about to ask him what he was doing here when he spotted the nametag. What, the kid worked at this place? "Anything I can help you folks with?" He looked at the bats in Roxas and Xion's hands. "Oh, you play?"

"Uh, yeah."

Lea slung his arm over Roxas's shoulder. "Roxas here is the Struggle champ back home!"

"Axel, he doesn't need to know…" Roxas trailed off when he heard Tidus snickering, then shot the other boy a look. "What?"

"Sorry, it's just, you said you were from Kilika right?" Tidus picked up another Struggle bat from the rack and gave it a swing. "I guess I haven't been there myself, but since Struggle is so new I don't know what kind of games you were playing to be able to say you're a champ."

"I've got the trophy to prove it!" Roxas snapped, but then he pulled back. "Uh…at home."

"Uh huh. Well how about a match then? We've got a setup in the back room."

Naminé tilted her head in confusion. "Um, aren't you working?"

Tidus winked at her then shouted over to the front of the shop. "Hey Wakka, cover for me! Me and that Kilika kid from yesterday are gonna have a Struggle game!"

You could practically hear the eye roll in Wakka's voice when he shouted back. "Alright, but you got fifteen minutes, yeah?"

Tidus turned back to Roxas. "Plenty of time. You in?"

Roxas stared at the Struggle bat in his hand for a moment before Xion shoved him in the shoulder. "Come on. I played that dancing game."

Roxas smiled and took a breath. "Okay Tidus, you're on."

"That's what I like to hear!"

Tidus led them into the back of the shop and through a door, where what appeared to be a boxing ring was set up with the McDuck Enterprises logo on the floor. He tossed Roxas a familiar velcro vest and helmet with blue balls attached all over it, then put on one of his own with yellow balls and hopped in the ring.

Wakka gave them fifteen minutes – it didn't take even half that.

Tidus crashed onto the floor of the ring with all his balls stripped from his vest and helm, while Roxas was only missing a third. As Lea tossed both kids a towel and Xion and Naminé handed them bottles of water, Tidus climbed up to his feet and rested against the ropes on the edge of the ring. "Okay, okay, I believe you. You're definitely a Struggle champ."

Roxas chuckled and wiped his brow. "Right."

Tidus took another moment to catch his breath and then started laughing. "Man, I dunno what it was, but playing against you reminded me of fighting Sora on the beach back in the old days."

Roxas hesitated…and then let out a laugh of his own. "It was nice, yeah. Play you again?" He held out his hand, and Tidus clasped it.

"Any time! Uh, when it's not blitz season, that is."

Roxas ended up purchasing replacement wheels for his skateboard, they parted ways with Tidus, and as they were making their way back out into the mall Naminé spoke up. "Um, Tidus handed me this when I gave him his water… What do I do with it?" She held up a small piece of paper.

Xion examined it curiously. "Numbers?"

Roxas looked over both girls' shoulders. "A phone number maybe? But what for?"

As the three of them stared in confusion at the slip of paper, Lea had to physically stop himself from cracking up in public.

And several more hours passed at Sugar Fields Mall before afternoon slowly started to approach evening. Sunset hadn't hit yet, but it would be any time now. Roxas, Xion, Lea, and Naminé sat at a table in the food court munching on what else but sea salt ice cream bars when Lea slammed his hand on the table. "I've got it!"

The other three jumped in surprise at his sudden shout, and more than a few stares turned their way. "Got what? And sit down, Lea!" Xion reprimanded him.

Lea looked down; he hadn't even realized he'd stood up. Apologizing softly he sat back down in his seat. "I've got the best idea. As long as we're at the Destiny Islands there's only one way to end today: we take a trip to the beach!"

Roxas and Xion's faces both lit up at that, just like Lea knew they would. And then just to assuage any other concerns he added, "Besides, we can't just stick around the mall forever. We've still gotta find that Keyhole, and I'd say after this trip we can be certain it's not here."

"I guess that's true, but uh…" Roxas and Xion exchanged glances and then looked back to Lea. "Axel, we didn't exactly pack swimsuits with us."

Naminé's shoulders slumped ever so slightly. "I, um, don't own one at all."

Lea rolled his eyes and tapped his head. "And what's the problem? Come on guys, we're in a  _mall_. You think I haven't already planned ahead?"

And as Lea pulled out a brochure with a map of Sugar Fields to point out the swimsuit shop he'd spotted and made a mental note of earlier that day, Roxas, Xion, and Naminé all uttered the same thing: "Oh no."

**x-x-x**

Beneath the beautiful orange sky, the door to the seaside shack on the Destiny Islands' play island swung open and Lea stepped out proudly to strike a pose. When Roxas didn't immediately follow him, he turned around, pulled him out onto the beach, and then struck the pose a second time. "Well?"

Out on the sand, having just finished scouting the beach for the Keyhole, Naminé and Xion turned to the two of them. Lea was just dying to know what they thought of his bright red trunks with badass yellow flame decals, it was going to absolutely blow their minds.

"Um…" Naminé muttered. She was wearing a white one piece with an unzipped jacket over it.

"It's very… _you_ ," Xion said. She had on a black and dark blue bikini, the top piece a halter top.

Beside Lea, Roxas sighed in his own tan trunks and black rash guard. "Trust me, it's better than the speedo."

Looks of absolute horror crossed both girls' faces. " _Speedo_?"

Lea's pose faltered and he spun around as he recovered his footing. "I wasn't actually going to buy it, Roxas! It was a joke!"

"The real joke is on me for having to see you try it on back at the store– Hey!" Roxas struggled as Lea wrapped his arms around the kid's neck and began to give him a noogie. He only stopped when Xion and Naminé moved to separate the two, after which Lea grabbed both girls by the arms and flung them into the water.

Xion was the first to break from the surface. She glared at Lea from behind black hair hanging over her eyes. "What was that for?!"

"It's my God-given right as the tallest person here to toss all pipsqueaks around. Now outta the way!"

Xion and Naminé shrieked and laughed as Lea came running at them and jumped, barely making it clear before he came down in a cannonball. Roxas dove in a moment later, and he and Xion only had to exchange a glance before the two of them piled on Lea and forced him under the water. Naminé panicked and hurried over to pull them off of him, only for Xion to turn around and splash water in her face. As Naminé sputtered and started splashing back at Xion, Lea finally broke the surface and flicked Roxas in the side of the head.

And underneath that familiar, comforting light of sunset they spent the last bit of the day just playing together. There was no Flood of Light, no Keyblades, no missing friends or traumatic nightmares, just four friends enjoying their beach day together. An hour or so after evening gave way to night, Xion and Naminé were hunting seashells underwater while Roxas and Lea were on the shore building sculptures out of sand when it happened. A sudden burst of light coming from inland all but blinded the four, and caused Xion drop the thalassa shell she was holding and Lea to stumble into his sand castle.

"What is that?!" Naminé asked, worry creeping into her voice.

Her answer was inaudible and involuntary. Lea's Keyblade flashed into his hand, and when he registered that it had done so without him calling on it he quickly looked to Roxas beside him and then Xion as she climbed ashore. Sure enough, they held their Keyblades as well.  _Déjà vu, I've seen this before._

Just like what had happened at the Chamber of Repose the presence of Keyblades caused the blinding light to die down to more reasonable levels, though not disappear outright. And as it dimmed, they could finally pinpoint where it was coming from: a small cavern next to the nearby waterfall, one that Lea hadn't noticed before with it practically hidden behind vegetation.

"The secret place…" Roxas muttered.

"You know it?"

"Sora does." Saying nothing else to Lea, Roxas silently turned to Xion and she gave him a nod. He took a breath and swung Oathkeeper and Oblivion experimentally. "It looks like we found the Keyhole."

Naminé approached the group while wringing water out of her hair. "So that's the Flood of Light? But I don't feel frozen the way Ienzo described."

"I never thought I'd say these words, but you Nobodies are lucky," Lea muttered. He dismissed his Keyblade and sighed. "There's nothing I can do against the Flood of Light. Roxas, Xion, take care of it real quick."

"We'll be a minute tops," Roxas replied. He began walking toward the secret place and gestured for not only Xion to follow, but Naminé as well. "Come on, let's show you how Xion and I work."

"Um…" Naminé glanced at Lea, who waved her forward. "Okay!" It was an almost comedic sight, the tonal discrepancy of three teenagers in their swimsuits charging forward while holding swords, but Lea wasn't exactly in a laughing mood.

The secret place was cold and damp but not at all dark, not with the light pouring forth from the far wall. No, not the far wall – from a door against the far wall. Roxas frowned as they approached it. How had he not remembered this door? It had appeared out of nowhere just days before Sora's first journey. Damn his fuzzy, broken memories; if he or Xion could actually make heads or tails of what they could remember of Sora's life they could have stopped by the Keyhole yesterday. Not that it mattered now though, they were still here in time to stop the Flood of Light and that was what was important.

Xion held up Sign of Innocence as they approached the door and the light retreated in response, though once again never outright vanishing. When they were close enough to make out the shape of the Keyhole itself, something made Roxas pause. Beneath the blue-white glow that he was starting to get used to seeing pour out of the Keyhole, there was something else: a shimmer of green. He squinted through the light and peered inside the Keyhole, trying to make out… What was that…?

An image flashed through his mind, a drawing he had seen in Naminé's room the day before, and then it all clicked. There was a green gemstone embedded inside Destiny Islands' Keyhole. The world's heart, just like Naminé had said.

He looked to Naminé, who was standing apprehensively a few feet behind him and Xion. "I thought the heart was across the ocean? From that old legend?"

Naminé shrugged and shook her head. "That's just a story. Or at least, it is as far as I know. But if there is any truth to it, the story did say that Te Fiti was a living island. Maybe she moved closer to Motunui to watch over the heroine who saved her?"

"Te Fiti…" Xion mouthed the words as if testing them. The name brought up memories of Sora's favorite childhood books to both her and Roxas. "Are you saying the play island is actually the goddess from the legend?"

"Like I said, I thought it was just a story."

"Let's think about it later. Right now we'll take care of the Flood." Roxas held both of his Keyblades together and pointed them forward. Beside him Xion raised up her Keyblade as well. "Naminé, we'll be right bac– Look out!"

In the span of a single breath, the green stone within the Keyhole flashed a dangerous orange and glowed bright enough to overwhelm the dimmed Flood of Light. Roxas shoved Xion aside then spun around and tackled Naminé to the ground just in time for all of them to avoid a pillar of flame that erupted out of the Keyhole, accompanied by a horrified, pain-filled scream that shook all three of them to their cores.

Pinned underneath Roxas, Naminé was wide-eyed and shaking as the unbelievable heat died down. "W-What was that?!"

Xion gasped and jumped up to her feet. "Outside!" That was the only explanation she give as she ran back out onto the beach, leaving Roxas and Naminé to scramble to their feet as they realized a dangerous orange glow was illuminating the tunnel they had come down. Was the island on fire?! But no, the situation was perhaps worse than that.

Out on the beach they saw Lea with Keyblade in hand, facing what at first appeared to be a volcano that had suddenly erupted out from the crust beneath the waves. But the truth was something else; as they came closer they could make out features in the magma that rose above the water. The flames that had shot out of the Keyhole, they had turned into something more. Something  _alive_.

Xion was the first to join Lea at the base of the lava monster. "Axel, what's going on?!"

"I have no idea, and this is coming from the guy who specializes in fire!"

"It's Te Kā!" Naminé cried as the monster let out another roar. It sounded so sorrowful, so full of pain. "From the legend! The world itself is reacting to its heart falling into slumber, just like how it lashed out when it lost its heart in the story!"

"The Flood of Light is causing this?" Roxas asked.

"It's the world trying to fight back. At least, that's what I think!"

Te Kā, the angered form that Te Fiti took in that old story. It –  _she_  – turned her attention on the four of them as if Naminé voicing her name had been the trigger. She roared once more and brought a molten fist down on the island, which Roxas hurried and blocked with both Keyblades. Not without trouble though, as he struggled against the weight and heat of the lava giant pressing down on him. A sudden rush of cold flew past his head as Xion cast Blizzard at Te Kā's hand and she recoiled, freeing Roxas from his struggle against her hand.

As Te Kā sent a blast of fire Lea's way, he launch a fireball of his own from Flame Liberator that countered it, causing both to go up in smoke. "If we both want to stop it then why's she fighting us?!"

Naminé ran out of the way of another swing of Te Kā's fists. "When Te Fiti is Te Kā she's not thinking correctly– Roxas, behind you!"

Naminé's warning gave just enough time for Roxas to pivot around on one foot and slash right through a boulder that would have otherwise flattened him. Once it was cleaved in half the rock crumbled away into embers. Roxas readjusted his grip on both his Keyblades and grit his teeth. "Then if we can't reason with her we don't have a choice. We'll have to beat her back!"

Xion ran up beside Roxas and jumped in the air while thrusting her Keyblade out. "Stream!" Water swirled around her body and rippled on the surface of the ocean beneath her. With a cast of Waterga, two streams flew out from both Xion's Keyblade and the ocean and crashed into Te Kā's side. Where the water made contact Te Kā's magma body hardened and became stone, though she quickly took notice of that and pressed her burning hands on the cooled spots to melt them again. But seeing it gave Lea an idea.

"Xion, do that again!" Lea ordered as he hopped onto the roof of the seaside shack and then from there onto the bridge connecting the beach to the paopu island.

"Okay!" Xion did as he asked and cast Waterga once more, once again cooling a chunk of Te Kā's body into stone. Lea took a running leap off of the bridge while his Keyblade glowed bright orange. In midair it split apart and changed shape, transforming into the familiar sight of his two chakrams. With the weapons alight with flame, Lea tossed them both at one of the stone chunks of Te Kā's body.

Te Kā roared in pain as the stone shattered and evaporated into embers, just like the stone that Roxas had cut in half earlier. Rather than it having turned back into magma that part of her molten body was now outright gone, and while the rest of the magma that formed her shifted to fill in the empty space the conservation of mass meant she grew slightly smaller in doing so.

A lightbulb went off in Roxas's head. "Oh, I get it!" He tossed his Keyblade at Te Kā and it dug into the other section that Xion had cooled down, then broke into particles of light and teleported up to his Keyblade. Roxas pried it out of the stone, and now that he was within range swung at Te Kā's solidified body with all his might. As the stone shattered he pushed off with his feet and landed back on the beach just as Te Kā swiped an arm at him.

Xion conjured another burst of water that struck Te Kā in the wrist and the stone spread like a sickness, taking up her entire right arm. Lea, with his chakrams having turned back into his Keyblade swung from his position on the ground and sent a blade of fire cutting through the air. It sliced right through the stone arm, which fell from Te Kā's body as she roared in pain. Just before it evaporated the stone arm landed in the water and caused a mighty splash that struck at Te Kā's lower body, solidifying everything below the spiral pattern on her chest.

Lea split his Keyblade into his chakrams once again. "Roxas! Xion!"

The two of them were already running. "Axel, now!"

Lea leaped into the air and hurled both chakrams at Te Kā's lower body. He moved his hands through the air and the chakrams obeyed, moving in mimic of the directions he remotely gave them to slash again and again at Te Kā. As he did so Roxas and Xion made a running leap from the shore of the island and attacked Te Kā together, hitting her in a single cross-patterned strike. In a burst of flame Lea's chakrams returned to his hands and he dropped down on Te Kā, bringing them together on her stone abdomen and causing a pillar of fire to erupt out of the earth. Before she could recover and counter attack, Roxas, Xion, and Lea all leaped backwards onto the beach and out of harm's way.

Te Kā roared in fury and pain as the magma composing her shifted and moved, filling out her lost body parts in exchange for making her much smaller. She was now perhaps half of her original size, though granted considering how tall she had started she still towered over everyone fighting her. But moreover, her fury was manifesting in a different way now. Roxas threw his hands up in front of his face as she glowed brightly like the sun. The heat she gave off had become unbearable, inapproachable. How were they supposed to attack her if they couldn't even get near?

As if reading his mind, suddenly silver-white light burst out of the darkness surrounding Te Kā. Out of nowhere translucent chains that seemed to be made of glass or crystal manifested and wrapped around Te Kā's arms, waist, and throat, binding her completely in place. Not without trouble though, as she struggled against her bonds. But though the chains strained, they held.

"What?" Roxas stared at the chains in confusion, having never seen anything like them. Where had they even come from? His question was answered when he heard a  _thump_  behind him, and he turned around to see Naminé on one knee, her body shaking and sweat matting her brow. Her hands were outstretched toward the chains, her fingers straining as if she was desperately trying to hold onto something.

"Naminé, did you do that?!" Xion called over her shoulder.

"Terra…taught me…" Naminé said through shaking breaths. She grunted and struggled against an invisible weight as she climbed back up into a standing position. Legs spread apart she planted her feet firmly in the sand and took a deep breath, and as Te Kā struggled against the chains she called to the others. "Now hurry, use your Keyblades!"

Roxas glanced at Xion, and she at him. No words were exchanged between them. If this monster represented the heart of the Destiny Islands lashing out, then there was only one way for them to calm it down. As Te Kā thrashed and strained against Naminé's bindings, Roxas handed Oathkeeper over to Xion.

"Ready?"

Xion's placed her hand over Roxas's. "I'm with you."

Holding Oathkeeper together, both Roxas and Xion raised the Keyblade up toward Te Kā and took careful aim at the spiral pattern on her chest. A wind kicked up around them as light gathered at the Keyblade's tip. Behind them the last of Naminé's strength gave out and she collapsed, to be caught by Lea just before she hit the ground. The chains that had bound Te Kā shattered and she roared and charged forward, using her hands to drag herself across the shore toward them. Her heat, her rage, growing closer, brighter, more intense...

Now!

When Te Kā raised her hand up to bring down and flatten the four of them, light shot forward from Oathkeeper. It pierced Te Kā in the exact center of the spiral on her chest and the light spread outward from there, the orange glow that covered her body quickly shifting to white. The light then overflowed and consumed the darker parts of Te Kā as well, illuminating all the magma that comprised her in a bright white. Then the white faded and shifted to an earthy green hue, as Te Kā's monstrous expression of rage and fury shifted to a calm, motherly one. They had just enough time to register Te Fiti's thankful smile before she faded away like dust in the wind.

Several long moments passed in the dead silence of night before Xion spoke. "Is it over…? Oh no, Naminé!" She turned around to see Naminé held in Lea's arms, awake but very obviously worn out. Naminé gave Xion and Roxas a weak smile.

"That was incredible, Naminé!" Roxas exclaimed. "Especially for your first fight."

"Thanks," Naminé replied, her voice still a little shaky. "But we're not done for the night yet. Hurry back to the secret place."

"Right. The Keyhole." Xion picked up her Keyblade from the sand and motioned for Roxas to follow. Now that they had calmed the Destiny Islands' fury, all they had to do was dive into the islands' heart and stop the Flood of Light.

**x-x-x**

Sometime later, under the starlit sky, Roxas and Xion lay next to each other on the cool sand. Naminé and Lea had run to Aoi's house just over on the main island's beach to pick up some marshmallows and campfire supplies, leaving the two of them to hold down the fort, as it were. After Roxas dug out a pit and lined it with stones, he had joined Xion there on the sand. The water gently lapped at their toes while their eyes were transfixed on the stars above.

"What a small world," Xion said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Not that it makes it any less wonderful," Roxas replied in the same tone.

Xion shifted beside him, and Roxas turned to see her looking his way. The shimmering starlight caught in her eyes and reflected back at him, as if her eyes were the night sky itself. "Roxas… How are you feeling?"

"Surprisingly calm," he admitted. Roxas closed his eyes and spent a few moments just taking in the chill of the sea breeze and the sound of the surf. That sound was everything to them, had been ever since they shared seashells with each other in the Organization. He kept his eyes shut as he continued. "Like I said this morning I doubt I'll ever be 'over it', but I'll continue mending."

"I don't think you  _do_  need to be 'over it'. Hold onto that hurt, but as long as you don't let it consume you and drag you into darkness, it will have a place in your heart as a reminder of someone important." Roxas opened his eyes to see Xion smiling at him. It was a smile sad and gentle, yet at the same time as warm as a campfire on this chilly night. "Like you did when you lost me."

"Yeah. And if I do fall you'll be there to guide me back, Xion, just like you did at the Keyblade Graveyard."

Warmth brushed Roxas's hands as Xion brought her fingers to twine together with his. She shuffled on the sand and rested her head in the crook between his shoulder and neck. "And you with me."

"Xion?"

"My situation isn't quite the same as yours, there are some things that you can't just keep with you. But we are alike in that regard, Roxas. If I'm your light to guide you home, then you're mine." She nestled closer to him and have his hand a squeeze. "I'm strong with you, Roxas. When I'm with you, my nightmares are so much easier to deal with. I know…we don't exactly have a paopu fruit, but I want to make that promise even so. Let me keep you safe, Roxas."

Roxas's heart was pounding that he was sure Xion could hear it, close as she was. His face felt like it was on fire, but nonetheless he shifted his body more toward her, resting his head on hers and moving his left hand over hers that was holding his right. "And I'll keep you safe, too, Xion."

Xion closed her eyes with that warm, gentle smile still on her face. Her breathing slowed to match pace with the tides gently moving in and out, and it seemed she was beginning to doze off there on the beach, just her and Roxas.

Until they heard the slow clapping.

Xion and Roxas both shot up into sitting positions to see Lea standing on the dock clapping with a sadistically smug grin, while behind him Naminé was holding a pack of marshmallows in front of her face to try and hide her near-luminescent blush. After taking a moment to register what they were seeing, Roxas and Xion then looked down between them and quickly pulled their hands apart.

Lea cackled and picked up a pile of firewood at his feet before he hopped down onto the sand and began to approach them. "And what did the two of you get up to, huh? We were gone for like twenty minutes!"

Roxas climbed up to his feet while Xion buried her face in her hands. "H-How much did you hear?" Roxas asked as he brushed sand off the back of his rash guard.

"Everything but the kissing, it seems!"

Xion practically screeched, " _There wasn't any_ –"

" _Relax_ , Xion. I'm just teasing you." Lea dumped the firewood in the pit that Roxas had dug and then lit it in an instant with a snap of his fingers. Naminé awkwardly shuffled across the sand and, after a moment's hesitation, sat down beside Xion. "We arrived somewhere around 'You're my light in the darkness.'"

Roxas plopped down on the sand, pointedly choosing to sit beside Naminé instead of Xion to hide himself further teasing. "And you didn't say anything?!"

Lea took the bag of marshmallows from Naminé, opened it, and stuck one on a skewer before responding. When he did finally speak, all humor was gone from his voice; he was completely serious. "I wanted to make sure you two could handle yourselves. You had that memorized, didn't you? It's the reason I tagged along."

Roxas recoiled and then stared down at his lap. "R…Right…"

Xion took in a breath. "Then…"

Humor returned to Lea as swiftly as it had gone, as he smiled so brightly it made his eyes squint. "Congratulations! The two of you pass!" But then he was somber once again. "Which I suppose means I'm headed back to Twilight Town. This was a fun break from work while it lasted."

"Axel…" both Roxas and Xion started.

Lea held his hand up, cutting them off. "That was our deal. Besides, it's like Roxas said back when I said I was coming: I can't actually help with the Flood of Light anyway. I'm not a Nobody anymore." He stared into the fire and his shoulders slumped. "But…listen, take care of each other, okay? You made that promise, so honor it. Keep each other strong like I know you can."

Roxas looked to Xion across the fire, and she looked to him. Was she blushing, or was it the glow of the fire? Was he blushing, or was it the heat from the flames? Roxas suddenly found himself chuckling, even though nothing funny had happened. He turned back to Lea and nodded with a grin. "You got it, Axel." And then, after a moment he added, "And by the way, your marshmallow is burning."

"Gah!" Lea quickly pulled the skewer out of the fire and blew on his black marshmallow, now more resembling a piece of coal than a sweet, melty treat. Laughter at the poor man's expense rose up around the campfire, and the good mood continued well into the night.

And eventually, the last marshmallow had been eaten and the campfire had faded away to a handful of glowing embers that just barely kept the beach illuminated. The four friends sat there under the stars, their consciousness slipping away after a long day, when Naminé spoke up.

"So I suppose you'll be leaving then? Tomorrow?"

"I think so, yeah," Xion said. She was resting her cheek on her knees, her eyelids drooping slightly. Her purple jacket was draped over her back like a blanket; a bikini was well and good in the day, but late at night by the water was too chilly for that.

"But we'll come back the first chance we get, don't you worry," Roxas added.

Naminé shook her head with a smile. "I'm not worried at all, I know you will. And no matter how far off that is it's okay, because today has been a great memory for us to share."

Something about that seemed to awaken something in Xion. With a soft gasp she jumped to her feet and ran over to the seaside shack, startling Lea who had started to doze off.

"Xion, are you okay?" Naminé asked.

Xion was digging through her belongings that were resting in a plastic bag on the ground beside the shack. "I'm fine, I'm just looking for… Got it!" She pulled something out of the bag and hurried back over to the others. "Memories for us to share – that's what reminded me of this." And she held up her Gummiphone.

"Not sure I'm following," Lea said.

Roxas laughed. "It's kind of a habit she's picked up since we started this journey. She's been taking pictures of each world before we leave."

"Yup! And so…" Xion looped her arm around Roxas's, then grabbed Naminé's wrist with her other hand, and pulled both of them toward Lea. She held up the phone to take a selfie, and before anyone could properly react, pressed the button with only a half-second warning of, "Say cheese!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of ended up paraphrasing Re:coded there at the end without initially planning to. I also planned on splitting this into two chapters after seeing how long it was, but then decided that a long chapter would be a good way to apologize for how long the wait for this update was.
> 
> This chapter was not supposed to take this long to update, but I hit a brick wall with my writing motivation for over a month, I'd just stare at the page not knowing how to even begin. I apologize for the wait but unfortunately can't promise that it won't happen again; it did several times back when I was writing Remember the Tides. I'm sorry again, and thanks for your patience both past and future.


End file.
